Posted on 07/02/2012 10:26:18 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
When rifle-toting members of Syria's shabbiha pro-government paramilitary gangs strut into a shop, cowed residents of Homs know to clear out of their way.
Accused of atrocities that include the massacre last month of scores of women and children - many of whose throats were slit and heads bashed in - the militiamen cut to the front of the queue as shoppers shrink back and staff rush to serve them.
In their informal uniform of camouflage trousers and white sneakers, the young recruits swan down the streets of the Alawite neighborhoods, set up checkpoints at a whim and stop traffic to question drivers.
"We don't know when they'll show up and when they'll disappear," whispered Abu Tamam, from the Alawite neighborhood of Zahra where hundreds of men have joined shabbiha gangs. "Some of their leaders are the biggest thugs in the neighborhood. Now they're supposed to be our saviors."
Lawless groups of shabbiha now style themselves as above the control of the very security forces that created them to support the brutal crackdown on the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that began in March 2011. ....
Hardline Alawite loyalists insist they are not fighting a popular uprising, but battling for survival against Syria's majority Sunni Muslim population that leads the revolt.
The victims of army raids on rebellious Sunni areas say assaults usually start with army shelling but end with up-close killing by shabbiha guns and knives.
Some come just to loot. Others shoot and stab those who have not fled the army barrage. Video records of the aftermath show brutal scenes of bloody bodies, children with smashed skulls.
Military officers insist their relationship with shabbiha is a forced partnership developed by Syria's security apparatus.
"There is clear, mutual hatred between the soldiers and shabbiha," said one army officer....
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Syria’s version of the Black Panthers?
Syrian rebels= AL quaida,muslim brotherhood etc..
We should choose neither side.
But alas obama has a plan.
Moslems killing moslems. What’s not to like?
Hardly an exclusive trait for paramilitaries
As a former pal of Victor Caranza....i got. bonafides to opine
Hardly an exclusive trait for paramilitaries
As a former pal of Victor Caranza....i got. bonafides to opine
Russia has everything to gain by our intervention in Syria or by our stumbling into an attack on Iran just before the election so that The One can try to get national defence cred. Primarily, moving toward either will divert us from all the other things Russia (and China) are doing.
Obama’s people.
When rifle-toting members of Syria's shabbiha pro-government paramilitary gangs strut into a shop......there's always someone on FR who will claim they're foreign mercenaries committing atrocities to undermine their hero, Assad.
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