The background
A massacre is alleged to have taken place in the village of Tremseh, Syria, which if confirmed would be the biggest single massacre since the uprising began in 2011. Government forces are said to have surrounded Tremseh and attacked it; then a pro-government militia, the Shabiha, is said to have come in and carried out over 200 executions of mostly civilians. The death toll since the beginning of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad is thought to be 17,000; the biggest massacre so far was in Houla, in May this year, with 108 people killed, many killed by shelling, others shot execution style.
The defection of Nawaf Fares to Iraq – the first ambassador to do so – has caused rumbles, too, with Fares calling on all free people in Syria to join the ranks of the revolution. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda has infiltrated Syria’s northern provinces and is trying to establish itself there, but their influence is thought to be weak.
“It appears that Alawite militiamen from surrounding villages descended on Tremseh after its rebel defenders pulled out, and started killing the people. Whole houses have been destroyed and burned from the shelling,” Fadi Sameh, an opposition activist from Tremseh, told Reuters, quoted on The Guardian.
Support for Assad is shrinking
The Guardian’s editorial said that the areas of Syria on which Assad can rely is “shrinking.” Since the defection of Nawaf al-Fares, a prominent Sunni and ambassador to Iraq, if more Sunnis follow, then the regime will return to its “ehtnic Shia Alawite core.” These increasing defections have “probably come too late” to stop civil war; but they make the diplomatic problems with Russia and China “irrelevant.” The more defections, the more it looks like Assad represents nobody except himself and his family.
But the regime isn’t splintering
But despite the defections, said Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph, the Syrian regime isn’t “splintering” like the Libyan one. Rebels questioned Fares’ motives, suggesting that he had an eye on a position in any proposed transitional government.
Who are we listening to anyway?
Isn’t it time to look at the experts who tell the western media what’s going on, asked Charlie Skelton on The Guardian. Just because people hate Assad, doesn’t mean they’re independent – some are exiles with US government funding. There’s the Syrian National Council, which is a sort of umbrella group calling for foreign intervention. Some of its members are closely linked to the US and London, so we need to be wary of information. That doesn’t mean you’re a “cheerleader for Assad” – it just means you’re “less susceptible to spin.”