A report unveils the horrors committed by jihadists fighting in Syria
By S.B. | CAIRO
ON AUGUST 4th Basheer Shebli was woken at 5am to hear men talking, in classical Arabic rather than his local Syrian dialect, of killing everyone in his house. In a panic, he and his family fled, his wife carrying their four-year-old son and their other two children, nine and 11, running behind Basheer. The fighters shot his wife dead and took away his youngest son.
This was day one of an assault by rebels, led by al-Qaeda affiliates, on Syria's northwestern coastal region. Early in the morning bands of opposition fighters overran a government checkpoint and pushed into an area of ten villages, carrying out killings that Human Rights Watch, a New York-based pressure group, says may amount to crimes against humanity. Local residents reported indiscriminate gunfire and murder.
Home to Syrians of all creeds, the area is also the heartland of the Alawites, the esoteric Shia offshoot to which the ruling Assad family belongs and whose adherents the jihadists consider heretics. Over the course of the operation, Human Rights Watch says the fighters killed 190 civilians. Residents and hospital staff in Latakia, the nearest city, spoke of burned bodies, beheaded corpses and graves being dug in backyards. Two hundred people from the area remain hostage.
Rebel fighters have carried out small-scale attacks, some with sectarian motivations, in the past but this is the first case of systematic murder of civilians—hitherto the preserve of the Syrian regime. The five main groups involved are some of the most extreme operating in the country. The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra, two al-Qaeda affiliates, took a leading role, alongside Ahrar al-Sham, a nationwide Salafist network, Jeish al Muhajareen and Saqour al-Izz, led by a Saudi. Human Rights Watch identified the groups from a government-sanctioned visit to the area and footage posted online, including by the rebels themselves.
Foreign fighters have become the main concern for the Syrian opposition as they are in general more brutal and sectarian-minded than many of the national groups. Western governments cite their strength as a reason for not doing more to help the opponents of Bashar Assad’s regime. Funds for the groups appear to come largely from donors in the Gulf, including two Kuwaiti sheikhs who the report says donated and fundraised for the assault. Almost all fighters and cash arrive through Turkey, which Human Rights Watch criticises for allowing passage into Syria. The report also calls for an arms embargo on the five groups which led the operation.
Western governments who want to help the opposition have long argued against sending weapons to Syria lest they end up in the hands of the radicals who are now the strongest of the rebel groups. Yet the man they support, Selim Idriss, the defected military man who heads the Supreme Military Council, subsequently appeared in a video praising the operation on the coast and claimed his fighters were involved. Luckily for his patrons in the West, but testimony to his impotence, too, Human Rights Watch found no evidence that he controlled any of the groups involved and says that fighters among other groups which might have a connection to his network did not take part in the assault until after the killings of August 4th.
