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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Syrian rebels pull out of Homs after siege |
| 2012-03-01 |
| Weary Syrian rebels left a shattered district of Homs on Thursday after a 26-day military siege aimed at crushing a symbol of the almost year-long revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. Activists said a few fighters had stayed on in Baba Amr, which has endured weeks of shelling, sniper fire and privation, to cover the "tactical withdrawal" of their comrades. "The Free Syrian Army and all the other fighters have left Baba Amr, they pulled out," one activist said from Homs. A statement in the name of the fighters urged the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian groups to enter Baba Amr and bring aid to 4,000 civilians who had stayed in their destroyed houses. "We warn the regime against any retaliation against civilians and we hold it fully responsible for their safety," the statement said. One activist said Syrian soldiers had begun moving into Baba Amr from all directions after most of the fighters left and were hunting the rest. At least 17 rebels were killed, he said. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #4 'any good photos of Hama after its 1982 destruction?' one here http://0.tqn.com/d/middleeast/1/0/w/E/-/-/hama-massacre.jpg |
| Posted by: linker 2012-03-01 20:52 |
| #3 Are there any good photos of Hama after its 1982 destruction? |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-03-01 18:38 |
| #2 Rebels? I thought these were unarmed demonstrators. Sounds like a re-run of Fallujah without the drone and JDAM strikes. And just like Fallujah, the Sunni Arab rebels used human shields. Unlike Fallujah, the Sunni Arab rebels hope to get the Western powers to win their war for them. Now that Assad has crushed the rebel stronghold in Homs after using limited artillery prep to inflict perhaps 1000 casualties on rebels and their hostages/human shields (as opposed to Assad pere's 30K killed in Hama 30 years ago), he will move on to Hama, the Islamist heart of Syria. Will the pacification of Hama prove as restrained* as that of Homs, or will it be a repeat of Hafez's WW2-style block-by-block demolition in 1982? * Pictures of Homs have tended to be tight shots of individual structures destroyed, instead of wide angle shots of rubble in every direction. The latter was what happened to Hama. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-03-01 15:06 |
| #1 And now the 'pacification' begins. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2012-03-01 13:59 |