Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[Childlike Empress]

Yes, I'm better at diplomacy these days...

Undoubtably so. I'm more busy with biting my tongue.

... and that's all I have time for. Today and forward unless your approach changes. Hint - pick one specific point that's already been raised and ignored, and quit falling back on vague generalities.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Undoubtably so. I'm more busy with biting my tongue.

Mm, yeah, biting it's not the answer. I dunno. Not sure if you're even saying anything here or not. I got up too early today and need a nap now. I'll be back later, but not massively. A lot of things to do tonight at different places, including the wiki finally. Did you see Petri started a page on the suburb "massacres?" (He's our third member. We have a team!) It needs much work, but it's a start.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Yeah, in their eagerness the terrorists uploaded plenty of videos to youtube which people are trying to sort into a timeline ... count me out.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Okay, if we can just move on from that pointless squabble over how to classify Yalda - CE wins it, I say -

Yeah, in their eagerness the terrorists uploaded plenty of videos to youtube which people are trying to sort into a timeline ... count me out.

Who's trying to do that? Petri had a list of videos I too have no time for.

Oh, and the preferred nomenclature is activist, not Chinaman. I mean terrorist (sorry, Big Lebowski if you don't get it)

I have most of the Spiegel videos transcribed. Focus here on the family of Muawiya Sayyid, retired soldier and police officer, and the accounts of his wife and daughter. First, Muawiya. I had thought he was supposed to be Mashlab's brother, but was mixed up. All this is "difficult to verify," but here's what's reported, gathered here:
SANA reported on June 2 that many of "the victims belong to the family of al-Sayed, with Muawiya al-Sayed being a police officer who didn't defect and was always in danger, along with two other al-Sayed households who are related to Meshleb al-Sayed who recently became Secretary of the People's Assembly."
Sounds like the one is specifically not related. And:
A local from Taldou explained in a video interview that "of Al-Sayed family, they killed the family of the brother of Abdullah Al-Mashlab, the 3rd person in the Syrian parliament. He was elected on May 24th, and the next day they killed his wife and three kids and his brother and his big family as well."

Aaaand the family of Mashlab. That's three households of that name allegedly attacked. Relation between the different branches? Uncertain. Where Ali fits in, presumably the one with the head of household not named. SANA says they were related to Mashlab, Ali says yeah, but very distantly. It might be no one survived in Mashlab's home, and the Sayyids we have are (allegedly) from the other two. But Rasha Al-Sayed Ali. I'll finally re-visit her now prior to posting what the mother and daughter told Spiegel.

Guardian, June 1

"We looked outside and saw the army checking houses in the neighbourhood," said Rasha al-Sayed Ali, 29, whose family home is in the south of Taldou. "They were near the water plant and one of the tanks started firing on our neighbourhood. They were trying to give cover to soldiers who were starting to break into the houses. There was knocking on our door and my father answered," Sayed Ali said.

She displayed her father's military identity card and told the men that he was a retired soldier. She said one of the men then grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pushed her and four other women who were in the house into the corner of a room while they beat her father.

"Then they brought my father into the room and shot him in front of us," she said.

"I saw my father's brains spill from his head." One of the security men fired his gun into the ceiling, she said, and shouted: "We took revenge for you, Imam Ali" – a reference to the most revered imam of the Shia Islamic faith.

"They were security men and Shabiha," she said. "One of them then said to the other, what are we going to do with the children? The other replied shoot them before the elders."

Sayed Ali was shot in the chest. "I fell to the floor. After a while, I looked around to see that all my brothers and my mother were sinking in blood. I started to crawl and could hear the cry of my cousin who was only one month old. The baby's mother was dead. Four of my sisters and my pregnant sister-in-law were killed. So was our neighbour. My brother's baby was two months old and sleeping upstairs. They shot her too."

Is Sayed Ali the same as Sayed, or part of an Ali family? They're apparently Sunni, since Shia/Alawi allegedly killed them. We have a home where everyone was killed, on the south edge of town, where the other Sayeds were killed. Another retired military father, little to fear from the gov., you'd expect, but then they've gone insane, so... Sounds like the story at Muawiya's house, but with different people. Must be the third place, Ali's home... bu he mentions no 29-year-old sister who escaped. He's the only one.

So was it four Sayed households or what? Opinions?

 

[JihadJane]

It's bitching, plain and simple. ... No problem with letting funk have "the point" here as well, that's what he has to strive for.

Well put.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Well put.

It is true. I apologize for tossing CE under the bus to make nice with the bitcher. Hopefully she's not too sore - it was a tiny bus.

Okay, no need to wait as we're in all different time zones, etc. I won'tpost the whole text, but a good chunk, first for Maryam Sayed, who being rather pretty I guess, got theup-front picture capping the slide show and gracing the overview article. She's clearly a star witness now, alongside little Ali and the defector Jihad Raslan.

We were together at about eleven at night. There were three children and my uncle’s family and our neighbor. We were all in one room with a door that leads to the fields. We wanted to [be ready to?] flee in case anything happened.

Which uncle, I wonder? (oh, I remember Oqba Sayed now) Total number unclear. Three children apparently includes herself, her generation there. Her father said they should all leave until the Shabiha were gone, perplexing Maryam, but he explained “people say that they want to rape women, kill us, and terrorize us.” She told her mother, who went to Muawiya to confirm, but then the Shabiha "surrounded the door."

So we, that is my family and my uncle’s family, left the house. The entire family left the house.

Everyone but her father, her mother, her older brother, and 8-year-old sister. Dad stayed behind by choice; "He wanted to open the door for them. He thought they would leave him alone if he told them that he was a retired officer and had served 30 years in the army." Mom was simply too slow getting the confirmatiion they should leave, still managed to escape, butwell behind and separated from the others. Her brother, Ahmed, was a soldier on leave for his broken leg - he couldn't run. Sara, the sister, was sleeping upstairs. Everyone just forgot about her and didn't even try to wake her up.

We fled across the fields toward Burj Kaai.

Dad said to hide and come back when they were gone, not run to the next town.

Our mother ...hid in the garden behind the houses, behind the flowers. There are flowers and stones there. She definitely hid there.

No doubt about it, and from there

...she heard them beating them and killing them. They were also insulting them. ... He told them that he hadn’t done anything, that he hadn’t taken part in demonstrations. They beat him up.

My brother told them that he was a soldier and was on leave. He showed them the medical certification that he kept with him just in case, so they wouldn’t kill him. They just want to kill people and commit massacres. They don’t care whether my brother is on their side or against them. All they wanted to do was kill him. They murdered them and then simply left.

Sounds crazy, but it's true. This passage causes the most trouble for me. The gov./Shabiha had no reason to kill these people, except maybe their name... (an interesting new issue). In fact, they seem so innocuous to, or even supportive of the government, the opposite concern (that rebels might want to kill them) almost makes more sense. No, it does make more sense.

My mother went to our neighbor’s house. She hid there until we met again the next morning in Burj Kaai. And that’s the story.

They never did come back to see what happened, waited in the next town, and Mom got there somehow. I know it's subjective, but I don't like the last line "and that's the story." Doesn't sound right.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Hana Harmut Sayyid, Maryam’s mother

This is a rare case of two survivors from the same house/attack, where detail cohesion matters. They generallyconfirm each other, raising the perviously addressed question of whether that's a good or a bad sign.

When the Shabiha militants knocked on the door, I fled to the garden behind the house. I hid behind the flower. My husband stayed in the house together with my daughter and my son. He opened the door for them. Were they people from the army? I don’t know. I think they were Shabiha militia members. They were dressed like the Shabiha and several others were with the army.

They came into the house. He thought they wanted to search it. I heard how he told them he was a retired officer, that he had no problems, and that his son was on sick leave. His leg was broken and that was why he was wearing a cast. He has four months of sick leave. If his leg hadn’t been broken, he wouldn’t have been given a sick note for so long because normally you can only be out for four days.

On the bolded, ah! So that's why he was wearing a cast. This really must be his mother, to know details like that.

The attackers brought Muawiya, Ahmed, and Sara together, then

...they shot them. I heard everything from my hiding place under the flowers. After the shots I knew they were dead. I didn’t hear any more noise from them.

The prefect witness with possibly super-human hearing.

The plan was to go out the back door – she only made it to the flower garden "behind the house," near enough to hear all of this. They met her husband in the front room, facing the road (Maryam's detail), after driving up on the road. When they left, it was by the back door, apparently, because now Hana’s seeing them from her flowery hiding spot.

When they left, they looked happy. They said, “let’s go guys, the job is done!” They got into a car and drove away.

After:

I left the garden and went into the house, but using another door instead of the main entrance. I could see that all the homes had been burned. I hid in my neighbors’ stable. Their house is located 50 meters from mine.

More on the killers:

They drove tanks and white cars. I can’t describe them precisely. They were white. There were also motorcycles. They said “we are sacrificing our souls and our blood for Bashar.” They cheered for Bashar.

Special note on left-behind Sara; her alleged mother calls her, per the translation, “the daughter,” not “my daughter.”

(The soldiers) carried out a conversation with (Muawiya) and began to beat and insult him. That lasted about ten minutes. The daughter was sleeping and woke up when she heard voices. She began to cry. She screamed “mama, mama, mama!”

Allegedly, she was crying out for this "Hana Harmut," who had never thought to wake her daughter up.

The emphasis on insulting in both accounts (or Hana's account, first-hand and repeated)is important. For a Sunni family that did nothing but give to the government, only to be slaughtered and insulted by Alawite pigs, that's the kind of thing that might require some genocide as soon as possible.

 

[funk de fino]

It's bitching, plain and simple. If documents.sy lists the place where it happened under countryside, that's good enough for me. If it's more halfway suburb/halfway countryside according to the map is completely irrelevant to your original question. No problem with letting funk have "the point" here as well, that's what he has to strive for.

I thought CE and CL were all about accuracy? It seems not from this post.

If you make a nonsense claim then you should expect to get called on it much like I would expect CL to call me on it. It is not about winning a point it is about letting other posters see the MO of a poster, and I have successfully done that.

Could have just replied yourself first and admitted your post was not true.

 

[funk de fino]

Well put.

Irony from one too "sore" to debate me here for many a year because I made a fool of your arguments and "facts" in the 7/7 thread.

 

[funk de fino]

It is true. I apologize for tossing CE under the bus to make nice with the bitcher.

Now, now CL. Just as I was starting to be nice you start with the insults? Good job I am not the reporting type.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Could have just replied yourself first and admitted your post was not true.

You reap what you sow. Had you acted in a civilized manner and good faith, writing something like "hey, I looked up that one place and while it's on the very periphery of Damascus, I'd still describe it as a suburb, not countryside", I would have answered "well yeah, I see what you mean but they described it as countryside, thanks for looking it up". Instead you barked in your usual charming way, funk, and then laughably boasted about "exposing my MO" over a minor irrelevant inaccuracy, if any, after I ignored your silly show.

 

[funk de fino]

You reap what you sow. Had you acted in a civilized manner and good faith, writing something like "hey, I looked up that one place and while it's on the very periphery of Damascus, I'd still describe it as a suburb, not countryside", I would have answered "well yeah, I see what you mean but they described it as countryside, thanks for looking it up". Instead you barked in your usual charming way, funk, and then laughably boasted about "exposing my MO" over a minor irrelevant inaccuracy, if any, after I ignored your silly show.

Another example of your MO laid bare eh? Cracking stuff.

I asked a question. You could have just answered it. None of this would have been necessary.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Another example of your MO laid bare eh? Cracking stuff.

I asked a question. You could have just answered it. None of this would have been necessary.

Well, i'm having fun with your antics. Always amusing.

 

[funk de fino]

Well, i'm having fun with your antics. Always amusing.

I am not the one who made a boo boo.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Who's trying to do that? Petri had a list of videos I too have no time for.

A german blogger who noticed that there are videos of the dead in several "arrangements", and videos showing people "arranging" them. He said he would try to bring order into them if time allows, but nothing so far and he's very busy with other stuff as well.

It is true. I apologize for tossing CE under the bus to make nice with the bitcher. Hopefully she's not too sore - it was a tiny bus.

No worries.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I thought CE and CL were all about accuracy? It seems not from this post.

If you make a nonsense claim then you should expect to get called on it much like I would expect CL to call me on it. It is not about winning a point it is about letting other posters see the MO of a poster, and I have successfully done that.

Could have just replied yourself first and admitted your post was not true.

Maybe an explanation why the issue in contention matters would help. Otherwise,

 

[Caustic Logic]

Irony from one too "sore" to debate me here for many a year because I made a fool of your arguments and "facts" in the 7/7 thread.

Hoho, I'm not the only one you'll keep harping on over one minor victory moths or years ago.

ETA:

I am not the one who made a boo boo.

I called it a suburb and you agreed, even though Yalda is actually attached, making it more a district of the city. Isn't that a boo-boo? ("Its a burb alright. ") Except the southern half, which is farmland, and is outside city limits. That fits with CE's point about it being listed as "countryside."

It's another boo-boo to keep making a big deal of this when you're only sort of right to begin with. How big a boo-boo?Up to you.

 

[Caustic Logic]

A german blogger who noticed that there are videos of the dead in several "arrangements", and videos showing people "arranging" them. He said he would try to bring order into them if time allows, but nothing so far and he's very busy with other stuff as well.

That kind of thing can be quite fruitful. I'm glad someone else is doing it, and eventually will have to get a link and see the results.

I'm looking into the "the daughter" vs."my daughter translation to see if it's really a slip ("ok, so the daughter of this family I'm pretending to be part of..."), or a mistranslation, or what. Will report back.

One of us should explain the name issue with Muawiya. I will try later, depending.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I called it a suburb and you agreed, even though Yalda is actually attached, making it more a district of the city. Isn't that a boo-boo? ("Its a burb alright. ") Except the southern half, which is farmland, and is outside city limits. That fits with CE's point about it being listed as "countryside."

I suspect it's an administrative issue, that this "town" as they called it on SANA is simply part of the "Damascus countryside" district, not the "Damascus" district. You can see this at the map they have over at documents.sy on the main page (whole country calm right now, which has been a rare sight ) - just hover over the different districts. Hope that this is the last word on this silly issue.

Checked the original German translation of Mother Al-Sayed's interview - it is the same "reported speech" use of words as in the English translation, making it even more obvious. Not "my daughter" but "the daughter" ("die Tochter") and the third person narrative is also present in the earlier parts of the interview, when she retells what her alleged husband told the killers. Like in "and that his son was sick on leave" transcribed by you. Interesting observations, looking forward to your transcripts.

That kind of thing can be quite fruitful. I'm glad someone else is doing it, and eventually will have to get a link and see the results.

I'll keep you informed should something be published.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Now, now CL. Just as I was starting to be nice you start with the insults? Good job I am not the reporting type.

For future reference, what would be a better word for someone who's bitching about roughly nothing, apparently just to annoy people? ETA: I appreciate the niceness, but it only brings us almost level. Cheers.

Hope that this is the last word on this silly issue.

Me too.

Checked the original German translation of Mother Al-Sayed's interview - it is the same "reported speech" use of words as in the English translation, making it even more obvious. Not "my daughter" but "the daughter" ("die Tochter") and the third person narrative is also present in the earlier parts of the interview, when she retells what her alleged husband told the killers. Like in "and that his son was sick on leave" transcribed by you. Interesting observations, looking forward to your transcripts.

"His" daughter" instead of "our daughter?" Nah, I wouldn't hang anything on that. unless I misunderstood.

Is there a good spot to post the full transcripts, or just summaries like we're doing? I couldn't upload this image, so here it is, 0:12 and 0:13 in the video:

On her husband's first name, an unusual one, Muawiya. Wikipedia says it might mean arm strength, and it's been used by some prominent Umayyad leaders, whatever exactly that means (I'm hazy). [WP]
The meaning that matters here is the first main one -Islamic dictionary helps (see here)

Muawiyah was one of the companions (sahabah) of Prophet Muhammed (SAW). He managed to become the fifth Khalif (leader) after rebeling against the leadership of Imam Ali (AS) and taking the throne as leader of the Muslim Ummah (nation). Muawiyah had a son called Yazid who Muawiyah made the Khalif after him.

A forum I can't access, acc. to the search, has someone asked to discuss the name saying this back in 2010:

I mean to say Muawiya is a really a Bad Word.Many our Local Maulana(sunni) do not reply on when prompting to give meaning of Muawiya.

Okay, so Spiegel took note,somehow, of this issue. Neither of the interviews mentioned it, but their article says, starting out incorrect:

The Sayyid family was neither overly prominent in the opposition, nor did it support the regime. The survivors believe that the father's first name, Muawiya, was one of the reasons the Sayyids were targeted. Muawiya was also the name of a caliph who, more than 1,300 years ago, fought against the imams whom the Shiites consider to be their saints, and whose deaths are still ritually mourned today. The name is very offensive to radical Shiites and, to a somewhat lesser extent, to Alawites, who are part of the same religious group. And it certainly wouldn't be the name of a man who had converted to Shiite Islam

Really, he couldn't? Well, who ever said he did? No one. Spiegel is wrong when they say

According to the reports, 700 members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had come to Houla from various towns to kill families that had converted to the Alawite or Shiite faiths and had not joined the rebellion.

Actually, a simple "or" for the "and" would make it mostly accurate, with FSA a simplification, etc. That they take issue with the supposed Sayyid conversion shows they meant it wrong. No one's claimed they were anything but Sunni, just that he stayed loyal and didn't join the rebels, and his son was still fighting rebels in the army until his injury left him at home and vulnerable to retaliation.

But here someone's saying the Shabiha heretics were so offended by his name alone they decided to kill him and his whole family, even though they allegedly didn't support the government and were actually in the rebellion, just not prominently. This underlines what Maryam said - not to Spiegel - about this being a sectarian killing, that their very uncontested Sunnism, or a name suggesting it, is what got them whacked. But it all sounds pretty wack.

Same motive according to Rasha Sayed Ali, apparently. She's got them shouting "We took revenge for you, Imam Ali"

But now that the subject is on the table, let's keep in mind that whoever did this, for whatever effect, perhaps this potent name was one factor.