Houla massacre


The Houla massacre was an attack that took place on May 25, 2012, in the midst of the Syrian Civil War, in the town of Taldou, in the Houla Region of Syria, a string of towns northwest of Homs. According to the United Nations, 108 people were killed, including 34 women and 49 children. While a small proportion of the deaths appeared to have resulted from artillery and tank rounds used against Taldou, the U.N. later announced that most of the massacre's victims had been "summarily executed in two separate incidents". UN investigators have reported that some witnesses and survivors stated that the massacre was committed by pro-government Shabiha. In August 2012 UN investigators released a report which stated that it was likely that Syrian troops and Shabiha militia were responsible for the massacre, concluding that: "On the basis of available evidence, the commission has a reasonable basis to believe that the perpetrators of the deliberate killing of civilians, at both the Abdulrazzak and Al-Sayed family locations, were aligned to the Government. It rests this conclusion on its understanding of access to the crime sites, the loyalties of the victims, the security layout in the area including the position of the government’s water authority checkpoint and the consistent testimonies of victims and witnesses with direct knowledge of the events. This conclusion is bolstered by the lack of credible information supporting other possibilities."
The Syrian government alleged that Al-Qaeda terrorist groups were responsible for the killings, and that Houla residents were warned not to speak publicly by opposition forces. This account received support from a report published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, but is contested by most media coverage and by the report published by the United Nations Human Rights Council in August 2012.
Channel 4 News reported that Houla residents stated that the Syrian military and government-hired Shabiha were the perpetrators of the massacre, as claimed by opposition groups. Townspeople described how Shabiha, who were thought to be men from Shia/Alawite villages to the south and west of Houla entered the town after several hours of shelling. According to one eyewitness, the killers had written Shia slogans on their foreheads.
The fifteen nations of the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the Syrian government for firing heavy weapons at civilians. The U.S., U.K., and eleven other nations jointly expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats from their territories.
On June 1 2012, 41 out of 47 countries in the UNHRC supported a resolution condemning "in the strongest possible terms such an outrageous use of force against the civilian population". The resolution, which blamed Syrian government troops and pro-government militias, instructed an expert panel to conduct an "international, transparent, independent and prompt investigation". Russia, China and Cuba voted against the resolution, with Uganda and Ecuador abstaining, and the Philippines was absent during the vote. On June 27, the UNHRC published a preliminary report on rights violations in Syria. The report noted that the commission had "yet to be afforded access to the country," which "substantially hampered the investigation, and its findings should be viewed in that light." The report states that "with the available evidence" the Commission of Inquiry could not rule out any of three possible perpetrators, but that "while the CoI could not rule out the possibility of anti-Government fighters being responsible for the killing, it was considered unlikely." In August 2012, following continued investigations focusing on identifying the perpetrators, a report published by the UNHRC concluded there was a reasonable basis to believe the perpetrators were aligned to the Syrian government.

Background

Al-Houla is an area mainly comprising three towns named, as given north-to-south in the UN's June report, Tal Addahab, Kafr Laha and Taldou. They report the towns have a combined population of more than 100,000 "of which the majority is Sunni Muslim," but are "ringed by Shia villages to the southeast, and Alawi villages to the southwest and the north."
Houla was a regular protest hub, even before army defectors formed the Free Syrian Army. The Syrian army had been accused of raiding and killing protesters in the Houla region before. But by May, 2012 FSA or allied rebels were in general control of the area, according to both pro-government and anti-government sources. Der Spiegel was told over the winter "a unit of the Free Syrian Army took up residence and it has been considered liberated since then" although the state's army still controlled "roads into the town." The UN's investigators only really considered Taldou, the southernmost town in Houla, and found "opposition forces may have been in control of parts of the city, mostly in the north."
According to Al Jazeera's correspondent Hadi al-Abdallah, this FSA control of Houla is why the Syrian Army was unable to enter on May 25, and had to shell it from a distance prior to the massacre. However, the UN's June report noted "Government forces are present in Al-Houla" with "fortified checkpoints" they show on an attached map. This shows only the south end of Taldou, between rebel-held Houla and the Alawi and Shia villages. All the reported massacre sites, also labeled on that map, are in this immediate area of Taldou.

Events

Opposition and United Nations account

On May 25, 2012, activists say Syrian soldiers dispersed a crowd of protesters with gunfire at a checkpoint in Taldo, a village of Houla. Shortly after, they say, armed rebels attacked the checkpoint, destroying an armored personnel carrier, and the Syrian military responded by bombarding the town with tank and artillery fire. The UNHRC's commission of Inquiry concluded “the protestors appear to have been fired upon or shelled by Government forces. Either in retaliation, or in a premeditated attack, anti-Government armed groups, including the FSA present in Taldou, fired upon the security forces checkpoints, probably overrunning one or two of them." They note "several people were killed in these clashes or as a result of the shelling...” In particular, they found the "clocktower checkpoint" located at the central roundabout in Taldou "was overrun at some point” in the day, giving militants access to Saad road. A Military Intelligence Post ways south on Main Street is marked on their map as “.” Even in August the commission suggests that post did fall; "the checkpoint at Al-Qaws" or arches - the next post to the south - "demarcated the new front line between the opposition and Government forces." However, as a mobile post, the position of the Qaws post isn't as certain; their June report's map noted it "may be further south" than shown. That is, the small force there may have retreated to some degree.
Following the violence of the day, the Commission of Inquiry decided the FSA offensive failed to break the government's control of the massacre area via the checkpoint at the arches, the force stationed at the National Hospital, and the fortified army post on the ridge southeast of Taldou, which all remained in government hands. Therefore, "the crime scene remained in Government-controlled territory the entire time." Considering this, the commission found in their August report "a reasonable basis to believe that the perpetrators of the deliberate killing of civilians, at both the Abdulrazzak and Al-Sayed family locations, were aligned to the Government."
Witnesses said Shabiha militia forces from neighboring Alawite villages, entered the town around 7 pm, shortly after nightfall. Some were wearing uniform, while others were wearing casual civilian clothing. The men proceeded to loot homes for the next five hours, killing many civilians as they moved from house to house. In some cases, gunmen herded whole families into rooms and sprayed them with bullets. Satellite images showed a large Syrian military contingent 1.5 km southeast of the massacre site.
According to the U.N. investigation, of the 108 confirmed dead, "fewer than 20" were killed by tank and artillery fire. Most of the remainder were killed in "summary executions", and "entire families were shot in their houses" in the village of Taldo.
The Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists inside Syria, stated that the attack by the military was preceded by mortar shelling of the town, which in itself left entire families dead. Activists stated that they had attempted to contact U.N. monitors during the night of the massacre, but the monitors refused to come.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the massacre was perpetrated by the Syrian army, which attempted to break into Houla after the town saw many anti-government protests. Political activists said that Syrian government forces and loyalists fired heavy weapons. Other activists blamed Assad loyalists of the surrounding Alawite towns for the violence. A local man, who gave his name as Abu Bilal al-Homsi, accused Alawites in ranks of Shabiha of executions of locals in the town of Taldo, where they bayoneted civilians as a retaliation for a previous demonstration and an attack of Free Syrian Army fighters on army checkpoints in the vicinity of the towns.
In interviews with Channel 4 News, townspeople described how Shabiha from Alawite villages to the south and west of Houla entered the town after shelling for several hours. According to one eyewitness, the killers had written Shia slogans on their foreheads. Reporter Alex Thomson stated that he had been told many bodies were yet to be recovered, and that he had seen at least two bodies not included in the initial U.N. count.
On May 28, Human Rights Watch released a report of interviews with survivors and area activists, in which all stated that the massacre was committed by pro-government gunmen in military fatigues. However, the witnesses were unable to say whether gunmen belonged to armed forces or Shabiha. HRW was also given a list of casualties, from which 62 victims were members of the Abdel Razzak family.
Video later emerged on the Internet showing the bloodstained bodies of many children huddled on a floor in the dark, some with their skulls split open, some with their throats cut, and others knifed or shot to death. The video also featured a man's voice screaming, "These are all children! Watch, you dogs, you Arabs, you animals – look at these children, watch, just watch!" Another video showed what was said to be a mass burial of victims. The U.S. State Department later published satellite photos said to show mass graves in Syria that line up with images from the ground supplied by Syrian opposition forces.

Syrian government and Rainer Hermann account

The Syrian government stated that the massacre fit a pattern of armed groups escalating attacks prior to Security Council sessions on Syria, as in the March 15 Karm Allouz massacre in Homs. According to the Syrian government's account of the massacre provided to the United Nations on May 28, hundreds of gunmen gathered around the locations of the massacres, armed with heavy weapons including anti-tank missiles, at 2:00 pm on 25 May. The account listed as victims "several families, including children, women and elders," listed the names of the dead, and stated that armed terrorist groups had burned crops and houses and vandalized the national hospital in Taldo. Five government positions outside the affected area had also been attacked by the militia, killing three soldiers and injuring 16.
Rainer Hermann, the Middle East correspondent of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has published an account of the events according to which elements opposed to the Syrian government, rather than government ones, were responsible for the massacre Citing anonymous opposition sources from the area, Hermann concludes that three Syrian army checkpoints near Taldou were attacked on the evening of May 25 by more than 700 rebel gunman from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba, under the leadership of Abdurazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf. During and after the fighting rebel forces and Taldou residents, according to Hermann, wiped out the Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq families "who had refused to join the opposition." The Berliner Morgenpost also carried an article questioning the narrative of Syrian government responsibility, quoting anonymous eyewitness saying that the massacre victims were opponents of the revolution, and that any testimony to the contrary would result in retribution from rebels.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's account received attention in the international press, but is not supported by eyewitness testimony from other sources, including Channel 4 and the BBC, and was originally rejected by a report in Der Spiegel based upon interviews with Houla residents. However journalists from Der Spiegel went back to Houla in December, 2012, and were able to confirm the massacre was conducted by the shabiha.
The United Nations investigation report, released on 15 August 2012, specifically contested the alternative accounts provided by the Frankfurter Allgmeine Zeitung, stating that the paper had interviewed two witnesses also quoted in the Syrian government's report. In a speech in September 2012, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay didn't directly accuse Syria of responsibility, but noted that government forces played a role in the Houla massacre.

Aftermath

On the day of the attacks, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Syrian government's "unacceptable levels of violence and abuses", including use of heavy weapons on civilian populations, before the U.N. Security Council. U.N. observers visited the al-Houla on the day after the massacre, viewing the bodies of the dead in a morgue. They confirmed that at least 90 civilians were killed, including at least 32 children. Robert Mood, the U.N. mission head, described the killings as "indiscriminate and unforgivable" and said that U.N. observers could confirm "the use of small arms, machine gun, artillery and tanks". The U.N. report on the killings in the days following the massacre strongly implied that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were responsible for the slaughter, demanding "that the Syrian Government immediately cease the use of heavy weapons in population centers."
Several towns held rallies to protest the killings. In a Damascus neighborhood women were filmed carrying papers that read "Banish the U.N. tourists" and "The Syrian regime kills us under supervision of the U.N. observers". The Free Syrian Army stated that it could no longer honor the ceasefire if the safety of civilians was not guaranteed, and that the peace plan negotiated by Kofi Annan was "dead". Members of the group stated their intent to retaliate against government forces.
On May 27, 2012, France, Germany, Great Britain and the U.S. proposed a collective statement at the U.N. condemning the Syrian government in "blistering" language, accusing it of using tank shells and artillery on a civilian population. However, Russia blocked the statement's adoption. Kuwait called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League to discuss the attacks. Later in the day, the fifteen nations that comprise U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the Assad government for its role in the attack, though the language avoided direct blame for the deaths.
On the same day, opposition activists claimed that the Syrian government renewed shelling of Houla, and set up snipers in the area in an apparent attempt to prevent any more civilians from speaking with observers.
On May 29, 2012, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.S. announced that they were expelling Syrian diplomats in response to the massacre. Turkey and Japan later expelled Syrian diplomats, increasing the number of nations to do so to 13. The Syrian government described the expulsions as "unprecedented hysteria", and in turn, ordered the Dutch chargé d'affaires to leave the country within 72 hours. Russia called the expulsions of Syrian diplomats "counterproductive" and insisted that a U.N. Security Council statement Sunday condemning the incident was "a strong enough signal to the Syria parties."
The following day, Denmark, the European Union, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the U.S. proposed a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council to discuss the massacre. The request was supported by 51 nations. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman stated that "They do not want to listen to Damascus, and that, from our point of view, does not improve matters in the current situation." Russia also called for no new U.N. Security Council action for the time being. Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov stated that: "One cannot take decisions on military operations in Syria by being guided by only emotions...the Russian position is not formed on the basis of emotions, which our respected French partners have unfortunately not escaped in the formulation of their position." Despite the U.S. State Department's earlier hope that the events in Houla might prove a "turning point in Russian thinking", Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said: "We have always said that we are categorically against any outside interference in the Syrian conflict because this will only exacerbate the situation for both Syria and the region as a whole."
A Syrian military officer, Major Jihad Raslan, stated that he defected to the opposition after "witnessing hundreds of pro-regime militiamen" carry out the massacre. Raslan stated that defections rose sharply following the attack.
The Arab League held a special meeting on Syria following the attack, and on June 2, called on the U.N. Security Council "to take the necessary measures to protect Syrian civilians, including increasing the number of international monitors". The following day, Assad addressed Syria in a 70-minute televised address in which he denounced the Houla attacks as "massacres which even monsters would not have carried out". He stated that the attackers had been funded by "outside forces" and promised a "real war" against them.

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