Primitive Tribal, Sectarian Slaughter in Syria

"This was one of the biggest massacres during the Syrian conflict [killings of Alawite civilians]."

"They killed every man they encountered."

Rami Abdurrahman, chief, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

 

"After they killed the father and his boys, they asked the mother to take her gold off, or they would kill her."

"There’s no water and no power for more than 24 hours, the factions are killing anyone who appears in front of them, the corpses are piled up in the streets. This is collective punishment."

Latakia resident

 

"[France condemned what they said was violence targeting] civilians because of their faith."

"[The French foreign ministry also urged Syria’s authorities to make sure that] independent investigations can shed light on these crimes and that the perpetrators are sentenced."

French statement 

 

"...The indiscriminate firing on everyone including paramedics, was like something from the previous Assad regime."

"They did not have any mercy, so we are against any violence against anyone in the Syrian coast who has not been involved in this unrest."

"All of them are civilians and they are all like our family."

Sunni civilian witness

 

"Thousands have chosen to surrender their weapons and return to their families, while some [Assad loyalists] insist on fleeing and dying in defence of murderers and criminals."

"The choice is clear: lay down your weapons or face your inevitable fate." 

Colonel Hassan Abdul Ghani, Syria defence ministry

Syrian forces head to Latakia after heavy clashes were reported  Reuters

A thousand Syrians are said to have died in the latest clashes taking place in Syria. Assad Alawite loyalists have stormed villages with the intention of targeting men of the majority Sunni sect, while gunmen loyal to the current government stormed three villages close to the Syrian coast killing men there, in the villages of Sheer, Mukhtariyeh and Haffah, according to Syrian war monitor British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

 

"They killed every man they encountered", Rami Abdurrahman, chief of the Observatory said, in reference to gunmen killing residents belonging to Syria's minority Alawite sect, aligned with former Alawite President Bashar al-Assad. Women and children were left unharmed in the three villages after the men were summarily executed. 

 

In the village of Mukhtariyeh, according to Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, men were separated from women and children, and shot to death. In Sheer and Haffah, similar occurrences took place. Bodies were left lying in the streets. People were terrified of venturing out of their homes, homes where their own men were killed when gunmen went through apartment blocks to knock at doors asking what sect lived in each apartment. 

Funeral of four security forces members in clashes with Assad loyalists March 8, 2024, AP

 An unnamed security official was quoted by State news agency SANA saying that after attacks by forces loyal to Assad left police dead, large numbers of people streamed to areas along the coast "in what led to some individual violations and we are working on stop[ping] them". Updated figures raise the total number of people killed by clashes between government forces and fighters loyal to Assad since conflict broke out on Thursday, to 1,000 dead.

 

Damascus dispatched reinforcements to the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus overnight, and along to nearby towns and villages in areas representing the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect, his base of support, in an effort to bring the situation under control,according to state media outlets. The surge in violent action represents the worst since insurgent groups led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took over the country.

 

Growing concerns after deadly clashes across SyriaMore than a thousand people, mostly civilians, have died during fighting between government forces and supporters of former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.  REUTERS/Karam al-Masri 

There have been occasional sectarian attacks since then against minority Alawites, despite the new authorities in Damascus pledging they would not permit collective punishment or sectarian vengeance to occur. Alawites held top positions in the army and security agencies, under Bashar al-Assad. His loyalists have been accused by the new government of attacks in recent weeks against the country's new security forces.

 

A curfew was imposed on Latakia and other coastal areas where Friday morning saw large numbers of troops engaged. Security force members describe minor clashes in city neighbourhoods but that most of Latakia was calm, under government control. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdurrahman on the other hand, described the outskirts of the coastal towns of Vaniyas and Jableh remaining under control of Assad loyalists, along with Qardaha, Assad's hometown. 

Fighters with the new Syrian government load a rocket launcher on Friday in Baniyas, Syria. Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes between loyalists of the deposed Assad regime and forces of the country's new rulers. (Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images)

Iran's Shattered "Axis of Resistance"

"The Syrian debate is happening at all levels of Society."

"People are asking: Why did we spent so much money there? What did we achieve?"

"What is our justification now that it's all gone?" 

Hassan Shemshadi, Iranian analyst

AP Photo

 

Iranians appear to be awakening from their stupor of victimization by their theocratic regime; influential critics in the country now speaking out publicly of the futility and regional destabilization fomented by the Islamic Republic of Iran, short-changing the great Iranian people living in poverty and repression crushed beneath the fist of the Islamist Khomeinist regime under Ruhollah Khomeini's successor Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, carrying on the vision of his predecessor.

The sudden collapse of the Alawite regime of President Bashar al-Assad, propped up by Tehran, has taken the Iranian Mullahs and their Republican Guard Corps by surprise; no longer can they rely on Syria as a conduit for weapons meant for the terror groups founded and funded by Iran and others dependent on its support; Tehran's infamous 'axis of resistance'. 

The public has always grumbled in fruitless frustration over billions spent by their government to recruit, train and arm their proxy militias, while depriving the people of Iran of basic necessities of life. That, and the Iranian lives sacrificed to help support the Syrian regime in its long-standing civil war against Syria's Sunni population, and its and conflict with foreign Sunni-led Islamist groups like the Islamic State; all to naught. 

 

AP Photo

 

"No one will be able to waste Iran's dollars for maintaining a spider web anymore", stated former lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh in a social media post, urging Iranians to celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad. A professor of international relations at Tehran University, Ebrahim Motaghi stated that Iran had been reduced from regional power to merely another country, on a talk show viewed widely.

The Iranian regime's strategy to become a dominant regional force capable of confronting Israel and the United States, its support of militant Islamist groups across the Middle East it named the axis of resistance, is being questioned not only by an incensed public, but also by well-placed authority figures. Mohammad Shariati Dehghan, former Iranian representative to the intergovernmental Organization of Islamic Cooperation wrote in a front-page opinion piece that the Assad defeat exposed Iran's strategy as misguided, "built on weak foundations".

A new approach was required, to prioritize building alliances with other countries rather than propping up militant groups, while redirecting funding and resources back to the people of Iran. This open public debate is a departure from the norm since for many years leaders of Iran placed support for Syria and allied terrorist groups fighting Israel to be a non-negotiable focus of the Islamic revolution, which national security demanded.

These open comments, infuriating to Ayatollah Khamenei, were, he said, "a crime", having the effect of sowing fear and uncertainty in the public mind. Iran's judiciary responded by announcing a criminal investigation into specific prominent figures and news outlets identified as leading the criticism. Among them, former lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahtpisheh who had revealed the Syrian debt to Iran came to $30 billion.

Syria had become Iran's central command base in the region for over 40 years. Military bases, missile factories, tunnels and warehouses were all controlled by Iran. Weapons, cash and logistical support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and terrorists in the West Bank and Iraq were all beneficiaries of Tehran's largess in building its 'axis of resistance'. 

When the Assad regime was deposed, Syrians stormed the Damascus Iranian Embassy, smashing photographs of Iranian leaders, and hauling down the Iranian flag. The Islamist rebel leader, Ahmed al-Shara, who spearheaded the insurgents, warned Iran he would not tolerate continued Iranian interference in Syria's affairs. Gone forever, the Assad regime's complicity with the Republic.

AP Photo

"Why were you spending billions of dollars of oil revenues that belong to the Iranian people on Assad until the very end if he wasn't even listening to you?"

"At least on the topic of Syria, stop lying and be honest with the people."

Alireza Mokarami, Iranian, Syrian civil war veteran

Beating Iran at its Terrorist-Enabling Game

"The Hamas battle is a relatively minor theatre in the larger war waged by Iran."

"Until you deal with the Iran question, Middle East peace and stability in the wider world will be increasingly disrupted by Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in the failed state of Lebanon, the Houthi war in Yemen and the ongoing mass murders carried out by the Assad regime in Syria."

"We already have a revolutionary movement in Iran that wants to topple the regime."

"What the west needs to do is help that revolutionary movement. What is needed is several lines of support to destabilize the situation inside the country. Funding, training, organizing the opposition so they can work together and topple the regime."

"If we're serious about solving all these problems, the answer is you need a change of regime in Tehran."

You have a population in the country that wants democracy and is open to the west and is open to Israel. Let's make use of this incredible resource that's at our disposal. The people in the streets of Iran are not equivocating. They want this regime gone."

Kave Shahrooz, Iranian-Canadian human rights jurist, democracy activist

Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel just within the six weeks since Hamas and Islamic Jihad invaded Israel. Only now that the Israel Defense Forces is destroying the capacity of the terrorist organization in Gaza, the rockets have diminished in number from the previous 100 daily to under 20 every day. But then, other rockets, far more sophisticated and powerful ones supplied by Iran to the Ansarullah Houthi regime in Sanaa, Yemen is sending its drones, rockets and missiles into Israel.

 

Yemen's Ansarullah group staged a military parade in late September to showcase several new types of Iranian cruise missiles and ballistic missiles recently acquired from the Islamic Republic of Iran to their protegees. Precision-guided liquid-propellant "Toufan" missiles with a range potential of up to 1,950 kilometres that brings the Red Sea port Israeli city of Eilat within striking range.

Israeli fighter jets and the country's Arrow air defence system intercepted several Ansurallah barrages of surface-to-surface missiles and drones; none of the attacks have yet managed to penetrate Israeli airspace. American warships in the Red Sea also have come under attack by drones launched from Yemen. Skirmishes with Iran's Hezbollah proxy terror group on Israel's northern border have been increasing. Airstrikes from Israel have responded to the Hezbollah rockets. 

Israel plans to maintain its focus on Gaza, but the prospect of a wider war initiated by Iran appears on the horizon. Hezbollah is in possession of a substantial arsenal, equal to that of a dozen UN member-states. In 2007 Hezbollah's weapons cache consisted of some 15,000 medium-range sophisticated missiles. At present, despite Israeli airstrikes on missile shipments going through from Syria to bases in Lebanon have allowed Hezbollah to stockpile 150,000 rockets and missiles; 400 long-range missiles.

Iran's Quds Force has been exerting influence in Syria in support of Bashar al Assad over the past three years, augmenting Iranian militias in Iraq, in a chain of command. Assad's military and security services now are supplemented by Shia militias faithful to Iran. Iran's armed groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, have recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan, numbering in total some 250,000 fighters.

A lot of manoeuvering and consolidation has taken place in the six weeks since Hamas invaded Israel with its barbaric terrorist slaughter of 1,200 civilians and abduction of some 239 Israeli children, women, the elderly and foreign agricultural workers into Gaza. Matters are proceeding precisely as the Islamic Republic has planned and there is obviously more, much more to come.

 

Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, an Iraqi militia trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards  Tasnim News Agency

 

Iran is recognized internationally as the world's foremost sponsor of terrorist groups, ever since power was seized by Khomeini in 1979. Partially enabled by the policy approach of the Obama administration, then reconstituted with Joe Biden's inauguration; a policy viewing the Khomeinist regime's presence as a "balance" to the major Arab states in the Middle East. A geopolitical arrangement Barack Obama attempted to secure through a nuclear-weapons agreement.

Rapprochement, he was certain, would become his foreign policy legacy, moving him to allow Bashar al Assad to cross the "red line" with chemical weapons use in the Syrian Arab Spring uprising of Sunni Syrians against the Alawite-Shia-Baathist dictatorship. 1,400 civilians were slaughtered in 2013 in Eastern Ghouta and Moudamiyat al-Cham, by sarin gas. Obama failed to act, under Iran's threat to leave the nuclear talks.

Conflict-resolution specialist Robert Malley was the architect of the Obama strategy and he was reinstated by President Biden, to revive the Obama plan. Until Malley's security clearance was revoked pending an FBI probe into classified intelligence that was shared with Tehran. Then the eruption of a scandal when Tehran's "Iran Experts Initiative" infiltrated senior policy-making circles in Washington.

Long story short, the United States would do well to abandon the intention to have a partnership with the Khomeinist regime in nuclear containment, or indeed any issue whatever. According to Kaveh Shahroz, Iranian-Canadian human rights and democracy activist, a fortuitous alliance of helpfulness with Iran's dissidents should enable Iranians themselves to target Tehran to dispose of the terrorist-enabling regime.

U.S. Institute of Peace, Woodrow Wilson Center

"Hamas is backed by Iran. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. The Houthis are backed by Iran. All roads in this war lead back to Iran and the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend on these terror groups in the region to help them terrorize Israel and extend their hegemony throughout the region."

Iran's so-called supreme leader applauded Hamas for its horrifying October 7 attacks that targeted innocent Israeli civilians."

"Iran's shadow war with Israel is stepping into the sunlight, and Iran must be sanctioned. That starts with listing the IRGC as a terrorist entity and the total isolation of Iran within the international community."

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chairman, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Unintended Consequences

"At 11:42 a.m. local time on May 3rd, U.S. Central Command forces conducted a unilateral strike in Northwest Syria targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader."

CENTCOM

 

'Senior leader' of Al-Qaeda-linked group killed in US strike   Middle East Monitor

 

"Centcom takes all such allegations seriously and is investigating to determine whether or not the action may have unintentionally resulted in harm to civilians."

Michael Lawhorn, spokesman, Central Command

Military officials in the United States are now investigating a recent strike in Syria that senior officials initially claimed killed a high-ranking al-Qaeda fighter. The man who was killed by the Central Command strike was a 56-yar-old farmer, struck by a killer drone on May 3. A man whom family and other villagers identify as a father of ten who had been tending his sheep when an American missile hit and killed him. Lotfi Hasa Misso, a former bricklayer, lived in Qorqanya, Syria, described as hard-working whose "whole life was spent poor".

Hours after the strike the operation, overseen by US. Central Command, claimed a Predator drone strike targeted a "senior al-Qaeda leader". The brother of the dead man immediately contacted the famed White Helmets who arrived on scene to find a dead man and animals that had also been struck. Doubts were raised and communicated to the Pentagon. "We are no longer confident we killed a senior AQ official", said one official. Another clarified on the condition of anonymity that "though we believe the strike did not kill the original target, we believe the person to be al-Qaeda."

 

Mohammed Hassan Masto sits next to the grave of his brother Lutfi, who was killed on Wednesday, May 3, in a U.S. military strike, in the village of Qorqanya, a rural area in northern Idlib province, Syria, Sunday, May 7, 2023

 

Following the attack American military authorities refused to identify who their target was, much less how the targeting error occurred or even whether a legitimate terrorist leader had escaped. Some of the U.S. military authorities continue to insist that a 'senior leader' of an Al-Qaeda-linked group was killed in the and that the dead farmer, despite the family's and villagers' denials was indeed a member of al-Qaeda.

 

When such unintended consequences take place, as they have in the past, the Pentagon tends to expand investigations in light of sufficient credible evidence of harm to civilians emerging. In this case questions have been raised whether the information that had been used in the authorization of the attack can even be justified. 

 

The Biden administration last year insisted it would take steps to reduce such risks to civilians, promising greater transparency when unintended deaths occur. The U.S. military had covered up past instances of errant airstrikes inadvertently killing innocent people. Media outlet investigations revealed flawed intelligence and "confirmation bias" led to disaster. A 2021 strike during the U.S. evacuation of Afghans under emerging Taliban rule had officially been described as targeting a suicide bomber, but had killed ten Afghan civilians, seven children among them. 

The Washington Post broke the story after having given four terrorism experts details about Lotfi Hassan Misto, and where he lived, asking them to survey online discussions among jihadists following the strike for comments on the Qorqanya attack. The result was no references indicating Misto to be affiliated with a terrorist group; each of the consultants remarking it would be unusual for a senior leader in al-Qaeda to operate near the area, controlled by a rival group.

The Post shared coordinates of where the drone strike occurred -- near Misto's home and chicken farm. One U.S. defence official said the location is close to a "known area of interest" to al-Qaeda contradicting Misto's neighbours who say that no terrorists live or operate near Misto's home. Obtaining images of Misto's face before and after death, the Post provided them to Central Command where officials have not responded whether they believe he is the man killed in the strike.

Father-of-ten Lotfi Hassan Misto, 56, who has been identified by his family as the man killed in the strike on May 3. They say was a former bricklayer who lived in the quiet northern town of Qorqanya, according to the Washington Post

 

 

Little Trust in Turkish Gov't Through Earthquake Relief

?There is a lack of trust when it comes to these organizations [the Turkish government's own organizations receptive to receiving charitable contributions from citizens] and people gravitate toward organizations civilians are involved in."

Gulfem Saydan Sanver, expert, political communication, Turkey

"[The Syrian humanitarian response for the year is already] severely underfunded, [with only half of what is needed funded."

"The international community is called upon to urgently increase funding so that] those affected by this emergency, within an emergency, get the support they need."

International Rescue Committee of the UN

Civil defense workers and security forces search through the wreckage of collapsed buildings in Hama, Syria, on Monday. (Omar Sanadiki/AP)

When the first of the February 6 tremblors hit, the major impact was in southern Turkey, and that is where about 43,000 Turks perished. In northwest Syria, four million displaced Syrians were already living in deprived conditions as a result of the Syrian civil war, a sectarian conflict which saw Syrian President Bashar al Assad, an Alawite Shiite Baathist regime, targeting Syria's majority Sunni population considering the rebellious among them clamouring for equal treatment as citizens to be 'terrorists'.

And while international assistance along with the  country's emergency services sprang into action in Turkey, no government action was undertaken in Syria to aid the refugees living in tent camps, buildings that had been bombed by Syrian and Russian warplanes, and other makeshift settlements where medical aid and the basic necessities of life were in short supply. There, the Syrian White Helmets, a self-help charitable group, did their best with inadequate rescue equipment to free people trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. 

The international community responded to the catastrophe that struck Turkey, by sending out search and rescue teams, providing winter clothing, medicines, food, but little trickled through to Syria. Turks themselves were quick to provide funding to internal NGOs rather than to their government for the rescue of their fellow citizens, and the provision of emergency supplies of food and water to  the wounded and earthquake survivors. Many of the worst-hit zones were evacuated, people bused elsewhere for safety from robust after-shocks and the danger of more buildings collapsing.

Most people in the international community sent their charitable funds to help the stricken Turks through the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and other reputable aid agencies. Turks had an NGO that was initiated by a Turkish rock star, which raised a billion Turkish lira in donations, equal to $53 million US. to help the victims of the quakes. They were openly opposed to donate to state-operated organizations.

The country's state Disaster and Emergency Management Authority with its affiliation to the Interior Ministry saw criticism by people across the earthquake-hit south for tardiness in arriving and inadequate response. Accusations of incompetence abounded. The Authority claimed it provided the correct response immediately the earthquakes struck. On the other hand, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expressed his own view that rescue was incomprehensibly tardy.

There was an alternative that most people in Turkey turned to with infinitely more confidence that their donations would reach those badly in need of assistance. The NGO AHSAF founded by musician Haluk Levent. Turkey's government has expressed its doubts over how the NGO plans to use those donations, and questions its mission. In giving needed aid to survivors the funding given to the NGO will find ample good use.

The sheer scale of the disaster which killed over 43,000 in Turkey alone is a difficult number to comprehend. This was not supposed to happen. After the 1999 Turkish earthquake when 19,000 lives were lost, attributed largely to the poor construction of multi-story buildings in the country whose building codes were routinely flouted, Mr. Erdogan campaigned on a promise to ensure that all buildings would strenuously follow the code for earthquake safety.

One town directly in the earthquake zone did exactly that on the initiative of the municipality itself. As a result there were no buildings there that collapsed, and there was not one death that occurred from the earthquake, while all around the town mass destruction ensued. Corruption is endemic in the country and shortcuts in the construction industry led to poor construction, responsible for the thousands of buildings unable to withstand the effects of the earth movement.

Under President Erdogan's direction authorities have charged and arrested hundreds of owner of construction companies, engineers, company lawyers and others involved in the construction trade. Facing a spring election. the current president of Turkey is eager to ensure that the grumblings of anger assailing the government's inadequate response to citizens in their time of dire need, don't stick too closely to him personally. But his office is where such decisions to enforce laws are carried out and the calamitous situation that ensued befouls him as the nation's executive administrator.

Millions of Turks are now without homes. The Turkish Red Crescent and the government AFAD received donations from within and without the country, as did smaller local charities and international organizations. 115 billion lira was raised through a television campaign and public institutions like the Central Bank and public banks turned in another 80 billion lira.

Turkish Red Crescent volunteers hand out hot drinks and food to people affected by the 6 February earthquakes. Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers arrive in an ambulance to provide urgent health assistance to those injured. Photo: Turkish Red Crescent and Syrian Arab Red Crescent

Syrian Rescue and Survival

"[We have received dozens of calls from people all over the world wanting to adopt baby Aya]."

"I won't allow anyone to adopt her now. Until her distant family return, I'm treating her like one of my own."

Hospital Manager, Khalid Attiah

 

"The rescuers can end up being victims too because of how unstable the building is."

"We just pulled three bodies out of this rubble and we think there is a family in there that is still alive - we will keep on working."

Mohammed al-Kamel, White Helmets rescue group, Jindayris, Syria

Rescuers from the White Helmets organisation, who are all too familiar with pulling people out of the rubble for over a decade during Syria's civil war, have been helping in Jindayris.Getty Images

 

 A newborn child, umbilical cord still attached to her dead mother, was found alive by members of the Syrian rescue group White Helmets and taken to hospital for care. "She arrived on Monday in such a bad state, she had bumps, bruises, she was cold and barely breathing", the paediatrician looking after her, Hani Marouf explained. In other circumstances, baby Aya would have four siblings to play with and grow up with. All four perished along with their mother and father. When the earthquake struck Aya's mother went into labour and gave birth; she may never even have seen her baby daughter before dying.

A lot of publicity surrounded this child; the video of her rescue was posted to social media resulting in a response from people all over the world, offering help, many wanting to adopt the child whose name in Arabic means "a sign from God". One of the nurses at the hospital treating the baby aroused suspicion when he was seen photographing the tiny girl.The hospital manager whose wife was breastfeeding Aya thought the male nurse might be planning to abduct the baby, so he fired the nurse.

Before long the nurse returned along with two thugs with guns who set about beating the hospital director. The gunmen informed local police officers they intended to punish the hospital director for firing their friend, with no interest in kidnapping the baby. False claims of being relatives to the baby have been made by people showing up at the hospital, indicating a need for a police guard. In fact, a close relative, her great-uncle has stated that the baby's paternal aunt plans to raise the baby together with her own she recently gave birth to.

 

Getty Images

 

Ten hours after the February 6 quake struck, rescue workers in Jindera in Syria's north discovered the baby while digging through the rubble of a five-storey apartment building where her parents lived. She has been cared for at the hospital in Afrin ever since. Dozens of housing units in the town of Jinderis were destroyed. Her father, originally from a village in eastern Deir el Zour province, left it when the village was captured by the Islamic State group.

Many of the towns and cities where millions lived were reduced to fragments of concrete and twisted metal following the initial quake, another almost as strong, and a series of tremors striking southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. Over a week following the disaster hundreds of thousands have been left homeless and struggling to find the basics required to sustain life; shelter, warmth, food, water, medical attention. The brutal winter weather itself represents a danger to sustained life for the survivors.

 

Moving aid into the large area impacted by the tremblors in Syria is hampered by the difficulty in access to crossings into the area as a result of the 12-year civil war where millions of Syrian Sunnis fled to escape the assaults by the Syrian regime's military. Aid agencies have found it difficult to deliver life-saving winter clothing, food and potable water. The Turkish military is still bombing Kurds nearby the disaster zone in Syria. There are warring factions nearby, including Islamic State.

 

People desperate for aid in Syria in difficult-to-reach areas still have received nothing. In Turkey survivors have been put up temporarily in rail cars. In northwest Syria, 190 families sleep on the floor of a basketball court in Afrin, lying on mats used for training. Children are wrapped in blankets and sleep on the court floor, some of them becoming ill from conditions of privation. Local officials are awaiting the delivery of tents.

 

The United Nations reached an agreement with Damascus to deliver aid through two more border crossings from Turkey to rebel-held areas of northwest Syria. A $397 million appeal for "desperately needed, life-saving relief for nearly 5 million Syrians" for three months has been launched by the United Nations. 

People walk past collapsed buildings on Thursday in the town of Jinderis, in Syria's Aleppo province, days after a massive earthquake devastated the region. Ghaith Alsayed/AP

 

 

The Sheer Scale of the Tragedy

“We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria."

“They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived."

"My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can."

Martin Griffiths, UN relief chief

 

"We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and caused deaths and injuries."

Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay

Collapsed buildings in Antakya, Turkey. Photograph: Hassan Ayadi/AFP/Getty Images

The disastrous earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria has brought out the best and the worst in both people and their national representatives. The international community responded quickly, almost 30 countries sent search-and-rescue teams in a desperate bid to save as many people as possible, trapped under the rubble of thousands of collapsed buildings in towns and cities all over northeast Turkey and across the border into Syria where 4 million Syrians, displaced in the ongoing civil war sought refuge in a crowded area with only one cross-border site, blocked by Russia.

 

In Syria, the White Helmet rescue group did their best with inadequate, basic tools to try to extract as many still-living people trapped and crying for help. UN aid trucks finally managed to get through several days following the series of quakes, and to the intense disappointment of the White Helmets no life-saving equipment better than the picks and sledgehammers they were using were made available to them. Hundreds of thousands of quake survivors, now homeless, are sleeping rough, hungry and fearful.

 

 

The Turkish military is still bombing border sites in Syria against the Kurds they mark as terrorists. Military personnel that could more usefully be deployed to rescue missions in both countries. The governments of both countries are facing accusations from their populations of a tardy, insufficient response to the urgency of the tragedy. President Erdogan's popularity has taken a tumble and like most autocrats looking to place blame has started legal action against building contractors, holding them responsible for poor construction.

 

Over 100 arrest warrants resoectung collapsed buildings have been issued by Turkish authorities amid warnings that the death toll from the earthquake that struck parts of Turkey and Syria could double from the current total of 33,000.  A dozen people are in custody; contractors, architects and engineers with links to some of the tens of thousands of buildings collapsed or seriously damaged in the 7.8- and following 7.6-magnitude quakes.

Rescuers carry 12-year-old Cudie from the rubble of a collapsed building, in Hatay, southern Turkey, 147 hours after the quake    EPA

Rescue teams from Austria and Germany withdrew temporarily to a base camp used by international volunteers, citing the dangers they've come across from firepower in the conflict between Turkey and Kurdish militias. Not far from the search-and-rescue areas, there was an attack on civilians, leaving 11 dead, at the hands of Islamic State terrorists. Because of threats, one of the Israeli search-and-rescue teams was forced to withdraw.

Beside collapsed buildings, others standing whole are experiencing looting. Some stores have begun to empty their shops of merchandise to keep them from being looted. Contrast that behaviour with that of desperate bystanders using their bare hands in the first three days after the tremblors to try to rescue trapped victims under steel and concrete.  In Hatay province several days ago rescuers crouched under concrete slabs as they carefully reached into the rubble to rescue a ten-day-old newborn. His mother, also alive, they were carried to a field hospital.

This is winter, extreme cold and snow blankets the area. People trapped under the collapsed buildings would die from exposure as much as from their wounds. Those too exhausted and in pain to continue calling for  help, would never see help arrive. In time their bodies would be exhumed and they would be identified, and buried. Miraculous recoveries of victims were still sporadically taking place days after the initial earthquake, but hope of finding more diminished as time consumed hope.

Now, attention turns to the struggle of survivors, homeless and traumatized, trying to maintain body heat in the winter weather, looking for food and water. "Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here. If people haven't died from being stuck under the rubble, they'll die from the cold", said survivor Ahmet Tokgoz, calling for his government to evacuate people from the Turkish city of Antakya. Chances of finding anyone else yet alive are fast dwindling.

Winter weather, road and airport runway damage all conspired to hamper emergency responses. Both governments will have much to answer for; the Syrian regime in its fracturing of the country, the plight of the millions of Syrians who fled government attacks on its citizens whom Bashar al Assad called terrorists, and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the lacklustre response to the catastrophe that struck his country."Such things have always happened," he said. "It's part of destiny's plan."

 

The Agony and the Sorrow

"The first 72 hours are considered to be critical."

"The survival ratio on average within 24 hours is 74 percent; after 72 hours it is 22 percent; and by the fifth day it is six percent."

Steven Godby, natural hazards expert, Nottingham Trent University, England

"As of today, there is no hope left in Malatya."

"No one is coming out alive from the rubble."

Ozel Pikal, journalist

More than 20,000 people are now known to have been killed in Monday's earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, though the UN warns the disaster's full extent is still unclear. Getty Images

 

The widespread scale of the catastrophe caused by the powerful earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday led to desperate measures in the hopes of rescuing an untold number of victims trapped in the rubble of thousands of destroyed buildings. The very widespread ground area of devastation meant that rescue teams would never be able to cover the entire area in a timely manner; the time-consuming, careful work involved in a single site, extracting survivors and pulling out dead bodies mitigates against swiftly leaving one site and moving on to another.

Most rural areas were left of necessity to their own resources, leaving people to try with their bare hands to move rubble and respond to the waning voices of the trapped begging for rescue. The more isolated the town, the more devastatingly shocking the trauma in the realization that there would be no speedy rescues. The work involved in identifying victims and burying them is monumental in nature, reflecting the scope of the misery and horror.

The first, most destructive magnitude7.8 quake, shallow in depth, followed by a cascade of aftershocks including one of 7.5 magnitude in strength, almost equal to the original, brought down more buildings, left more victims; tens of thousands of injuries and an entirely traumatized generation of survivors. The destruction stretched hundreds of kilometres across southeastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria where thousands of buildings were toppled.

 

Rescuers carry Zeynep Polat, who was pulled from a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras in southern Turkey on Thursday. Thinly stretched rescue teams continue their around-the-clock work to try to find any survivors or recover bodies from the rubble in Turkey and Syria. (Ismail Coskun/IHA/The Associated Press)

 

Hatay province in Turkey was among the hardest hit with entire neighbourhoods destroyed and where residents criticized the government's slow response. The earthquake had destroyed Hatay's airport runway disrupting the response of rescuers. From over two dozen countries search and rescue teams joined with tens of thousands of local emergency personnel in both countries. Experts warn the survival window for the trapped under rubble, along with survivors in desperate need of necessities was closing rapidly.

Excavators were used by rescue teams at times, and alternately the debris was tackled delicately where there was cause to believe people were trapped close to the surface of the rubble. The sheer numbers of those trapped is impossible to imagine given the number of buildings toppled. The plan is to photograph unidentified bodies and to bury them within five days once DNA tests and finger-printing was completed. 

The toll of the dead is inexorably rising, and has now eclipsed an earlier earthquake that took 19,000 lives decades earlier. The cold of winter, destroyed roads, a lack of supplies, hamper the work of the estimated 100,000 rescue workers and threaten survival of the now-homeless. The news of 20,000 dead being surpassed and concerns over the final number lend a sense of hopelessness to the ongoing search for survivors. Those who survived and are homeless sleep wherever they can; food, water, medical supplies and shelter slowly trickling in.

Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless after Monday's quake hit Turkey and Syria. Here, people warm around a fire as rescuers continue their work on Thursday night in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. (Petros Giannakouris/The Associated Press)

Hell on Earth

Still from Video:  In this brief video, a man is shown rushing an infant to safety in Jindires, Syria, after the child was born Monday in a site that collapsed because of the earthquake

"It's a race against time because the weather is so, so cold. It's been raining. It's been snowing. There have been heavy rains, heavy winds and the temperatures are below zero."

"So we need to find people as soon as possible because people are stuck under [the] rubble."

Hombeline Dulière, British charity Catholic Agency for Overseas Development 

"We barely escaped from inside the house. We have four children and we left the house with them at the last moment."

"I guess there are several people trapped inside. It was a huge disaster."

Survivor Neset Guler, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey

"There are possibly hundreds more buildings like this."

"Thousands are currently under the rubble. They [Turkish authorities] won't let us save them by our means, but they don't send anyone to help either."

Ahmet Alinak, Turkish city of Malatya

People sit by a collapsed building in Malatya, Turkey on Tuesday. (Emrah Gurel/The Associated Press)

 

People trapped under rubble scream in pain and despair, calling for help, but help is not always there. The area affected by the massive 7.8 on the Richter scale earthquake that hit both Turkey and Syria in the early hours of Monday, then repeated itself with a 7.5 tremblor twelve hours later is so vast, that even with an influx of foreign disaster relief groups from the international community the spread is too vast for rescuers' relatively thin ranks to be everywhere they're needed. Residents of towns afflicted by the quakes haven't the equipment and the expetrtise to engage in search and rescue in a scene this catastrophic.

Survivors of the quakes camp out on the streets beside the destroyed buildings that housed their family members. Imagining that they're alive still, under the rubble, but unable to do anything, forbidden by government edict to even try, informed to wait until rescuers arrive, when and if they will. The agony of holding vigil, waiting, imagining the sound of people screaming out in extremis hangs like the deathly pall it is, over the scenes of hellish destruction.

Some of those buried under rubble have been found and area hospitals are desperately trying to cope with the numbers and with the wide extent of their injuries. Infants are discovered and rushed to hospital. A newborn child was dug out of the rubble. Children are traumatized, silent and fearful. Some people able to use their phones livestream where their addresses are, begging to be rescued. One of the worst-hit Turkish cities was Diyarbakir where residents spoke of the ground shaking intensity so severe they were unable to stand.

People sit near the damaged historical New Mosque following an earthquake in Malatya, Turkey. (Stringer/Reuters)

Rescuers hush the atmosphere, asking for silence, to detect any possible screams of trapped people under destroyed buildings. And there are thousands of destroyed buildings. Night passed, dawn arrived, and the rising sun on Tuesday illuminated vast devastation in the destruction of entire neighbourhoods. The official figures of the dead steadily rise. Experts calculating the situation, the intensity of the quake, the intensely crowded population augmented by millions of refugees from Syria's civil war, warn of the likelihood of the total death count approaching 20,000.

As for the injured, their numbers will eclipse those of the dead. The physical injuries may heal over time, but the memory of the sudden explosive events of mass destruction will have embedded memories for a lifetime of disturbed mental health. The multiples of tens of thousands left homeless by the disaster in both countries slept out in the cold on Monday. People in Gazientep, a provincial capital close to the epicentre, took shelter in shopping malls, stadiums and community centres,while mosques in the region opened to provide shelter.

In Syria, both government-held territory and the opposition-held enclave saw families trapped in rubble, reported the humanitarian rescue group, the Syrian White Helmets. Packed with roughly four million people displaced from elsewhere in Syria by the war, many live in buildings whose integrity had already been compromised by the ravages of wartime bombardment. Health facilities filled with the injured; over 6,400 people were rescued across ten provinces, reported Turkey's disaster management authority. 

In an area extending from Aleppo and Hama in Syria to Turkey's Diyarbakir, over 330 kilometres to the northeast, thousands of buildings had collapsed. Over 5,600 buildings were destroyed in Turkey alone. Among them hospitals. An expert in natural hazards noted that the bitterly cold temperatures could reduce the time rescuers are given to save trapped survivors. Along with the difficulty of working in areas involved in civil war, to complicate rescue efforts.

People warm up around a fire following an earthquake in Antakya, Hatay Province, Turkey. (Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)

 

Islamic State Foreign Collaborators

"What is inevitable is that the government will continue to create obstacles ... they will continue to delay."

"They'll continue to create secret frameworks without notice, and then change their position at the last minute. That's what's inevitable."

"Yes, it's complicated. And yes, it's difficult. And yes, it's challenging. And yes, there are logistical [challenges]."

"But what we're talking about here is the life and liberty of 23 Canadian men, women and children."

"There is no reason why these constitutional violations need to continue. Canada has the consent [to bring citizens home]."

"They have the ability. They've done it already without incident."

Lawrence Greenspon, lawyer representing ISIL detainees, Al Hol Camp, Syria 

 

The camp where foreigners are kept by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces is a squalid, miserable place filled with women and children living squalid miserable lives behind barbed wire. Some of those incarcerated are hard-core Islamist members of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, and some are not of that ilk entirely. It is the hard-core Islamists that virtually govern the interior of the camp and those who fail to subscribe to their version of Islam are known to have been murdered, while all others live in fear.

The camps housing the ISIL male members are also densely crowded and squalid, miserable places to spend hours, days, months, years. So it is helpful to remember that these men did not hesitate to brutalize and murder thousands of Iraqis and Syrians, along with Yazidis who faced a genocidal effort on the part of ISIL jihadis who slaughtered Yazidi men, and took women and children into slavery, many of whom have never been returned.

Islamic State favoured producing shocking videos of captured British and American journalists and humanitarian care workers whom they filmed being hanged, set on fire in cages, crucified and most horribly photographic of all complete with mocking commentary, beheaded. The grislier the mode of death, the more viral their reputation as vendors of lethal terror, a bleak, dark celebrity they valued hugely. Their reputation as conscienceless purveyors of torture and death made them invincible.

 

Children at the Kurdish-run Al Hol detention camp in northern Syria in March. Some 70,000 people have been living in increasingly dire conditions there.  Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Military opposition melted away as they advanced to occupy greater swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, expanding their 'caliphate', spreading terror and subduing a cringing populace the military tasked to defend the citizens had abandoned. These are the prisoners that Kurdish defence forces rounded up and incarcerated to help make the world a safer, more sane place. Kurdish defense forces, unlike the two countries' formal military forces were fearless in combating the ISIL militias and protecting the minority groups they terrorized.

Now, the Federal Court of Canada is hearing arguments for Canada to rise to its international obligations to repatriate Canadian citizens who chose to join this odious group of murdering Islamists. Their family members in Canada have spearheaded a drive to have 23 Canadians returned to Canada, citing the violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by ignoring their plight abroad as prisoners. Canada is held to have breached its international obligations according to a United Nations special rapporteur by not repatriating these extremist fanatics.

Two ISIL-linked women and their children have previously been brought back to Canada, both women immediately arrested, one now free on bail conditions. As for other countries, France has absorbed 58 of its ISIL members, Australia 17 nationals, Germany a dozen, Netherlands, 40, Russia 38 and Britain two. Family members of these ISIL prisoners are looking for a declaration that the government's lack of action is unreasonable; they seek a formal repatriation of the detainees, emergency travel documents and authorization of a Canadian representative to accompany them on their return to Canada.

A 1960s-era government prison in Hasaka, Syria, that the Syrian Democratic Forces has used to detain male members of ISIS.  Credit...Charlie Savage/The New York Times

Inshallah, Lebanon

"[Following the Beirut port explosion of August 4, 2020 is the city beginning to heal?] ...No, it's worse. Because [there has been] no justice. Nothing."

"There are so many families that have lost their children, their parents, their aunts, their uncles that are working really hard to do something about it [looking for answers]. But I don't know if we're going to get anywhere."

"Now we have to think twice about everything, everything, everything. It's very mind-boggling. But having said that, I still love Lebanon, and I still love living here."

"It could be the most beautiful country in the world. And, unfortunately, it's not today."

"We're fed up with saying to ourselves 'We need to be resilient'. No. We need to make changes. We need drastic changes."

"It's chaotic. It's difficult. It's a transition, hopefully, to better things."

"And I say this with parentheses -- Inshallah. Meaning' hopeful', in Arabic."

Barbara Abdeni Massaad, Author, photographer

rsz_leinterviste

Oriana Fallaci, the verbally pugilistic Italian journalist who earned an admirable reputation as a hard-nosed, intrepid journalist whom Grand Ayatollah Khomeini agreed could interview him soon after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, also wrote a novel based on her experiences in Lebanon during and after the civil war which she titled 'Inshallah'. At that time too, when Beirut had been half-destroyed and Iran sent its al-Quds division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the country to train Shi'ite Lebanese the Islamist death cult of terrorism, there was still hope for the country.  

Fallaci succumbed to the demand placed on her to wear a face-revealing burqa to interview Khomeini for the opportunity to ask him probing, accusative questions of the route he was taking Iran toward. Finally, in the face of the Ayatollah's growing irritation with the questions she posed, she declared she was tearing the 'rags' off ("I’m going to take off this stupid medieval rag right now!”). Her novel described the dismal condition of Lebanon, its Muslim sects divided, the power struggles between Lebanese Christians, Druze and Sunnis, and the inferior status of the Shi'ites.

Shi'ite Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy group is pretty well in control of Lebanon now; threat, intimidation, violence, all accomplished what originally living in a state of harmonious mutual suspicion, alternating political positions in a governing-sharing agreement between Lebanon's various communities has pretty well broken under the weight of the civil war and the inability to recover from the meddling of Syria and Iran. Hezbollah recklessly stored explosive material in dilapidated storehouses in Beirut's port.

 

Deadly port explosion rocks Beirut - Splash247

The inevitable occurred when a spark led to a massive explosion destroying part of the port infrastructure, killing over 220 Beirutis, and injuring an additional 6,500 others. Two and a half years later, bereaved families are still calling for an investigation to be launched. The originally assigned judge of the Lebanese judiciary resigned amidst threats and intimidation from Hezbollah wanting to protect itself from what would be damning conclusions of its willful neglect causing death and injury.

The February 2005 bomb-assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's investigation was finally taken over by a UN special tribunal that found, as expected, Hezbollah agents to have planned the murder of the influential and respected Lebanese politician, their strings pulled by Iran.

Hezbollah's first atrocity took place when the newly-fledged terrorist group bombed the American UN military barracks on a UN peacekeeping mission, murdering 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French.

 

Over time, Hezbollah has gained in strength and influence, receiving munitions and stockpiling technologically updated missiles from Iran. It has launched attacks against Israelis and Jews internationally as Iran's terrorist proxy, and it has firmly established itself as an integrated part of the Lebanese government, while maintaining its armed forces separate and apart from the Lebanese military. It is more powerful and better armed than the Lebanese military. And under its malign influence Lebanon has faltered and become utterly dysfunctional

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Fuel shortage plunges Lebanon into darkness

Following the blast at Beirut's port, the severely troubled country's economy has been destroyed, inflation has made life impossible for its residents; people cannot withdraw their savings from Lebanon's banking system. Some desperate civilians have taken to robbing banks to the extent of their savings, badly needed to pay for surgeries for ailing family members. Food, heating oil and medical supplies are scarce and people are desperately in need.

The country, once the pride of the Middle East, its coastal 'French Riviera' and 'Swiss Alps', the playground of beautiful landscapes that drew tourists from across the Middle East and further afield is now a pathetic remnant of its former glory. The kidnappings and hostage-taking, the ransom demands and 'prisoner' exchanges, the underground incarceration of Church of England Terry Waite among others, incrementally destroyed the country. It is now on its knees, its people facing starvation.

 

People are threatened daily by economic and political threats. Some 80,000 Lebanese left their country in 2021 representing an increase of 346 percent over 2020. Political instability, economic meltdown, has led to a massive deterioration of the quality of life -- to the extent that 63 percent of Lebanese would emigrate if the opportunity arose. UNICEF reports that Lebanese children "believe emigration is their only hope".

 

According to the United Nations, 78 percent of the population lives in poverty. Lebanese Civil War survivors (1975 to 1990) claim that the crisis of today is worse than the parlous times they experienced living in dread of shelling or sniper fire. 

 

Members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah take part in Ashura commemorations in a southern Beirut suburb. Anwar Amro/AFP/Getty Images