The U.S. does not fight wars to win.
We don`t want to hurt civilians,WTF?
We use the Marquis of Queensbury rules,WTF?
The Massacre
Calls for vengeance grew within the brotherhood, and bomb attacks increased in frequency. Events culminated with a general insurrection in the conservative Sunni town of Hama in February 1982. Islamists and other opposition activists proclaimed Hama a "liberated city" and urged Syrians to rise up against the "infidel". Brotherhood fighters swept the city of Ba'athists, breaking into the homes of government employees and suspected supporters of the regime, killing about 50.
The army was mobilized, and Hafez sent Rifaat's special forces and Mukhabarat agents to the city. Before the attack, the Syrian government called for the city's surrender and warned that anyone remaining in the city would be considered a rebel. Robert Fisk in his book Pity the Nation described how civilians were fleeing Hama while tanks and troops were moving towards the city's outskirts to start the siege. He cites reports of high numbers of casualties and shortages of food and water from fleeing civilians and from soldiers.[3]
According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military bombed the old city center from the air to facilitate the entry of infantry and tanks through the narrow streets; buildings were demolished by tanks during the first four days of fighting. They also claim that the Syrian military pumped poison gas into buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding. After encountering fierce resistance, Rifaat's forces ringed the city with artillery and shelled it for three weeks. The Syrian army assaulted the town of 350,000 people on February 2 with extensive shelling.
Afterwards, military and internal security personnel were dispatched to comb through the rubble for surviving Brothers and their sympathizers.[4] Torture and mass executions of suspected rebel sympathizers ensued, killing many thousands in several weeks' time, known as the Hama Massacre. Estimates of casualties vary from an estimated 7,000 to 35,000 people killed, including about 1000 soldiers [5]; Robert Fisk, who was in Hama shortly after the massacre, estimated fatalities as high as 10,000.[6], whereas the New York Times estimates death toll as up to 20,000.[7] According to Thomas Friedman[8], Rifaat later boasted of killing 38,000 people. The Syrian Human Rights Committee estimates 30,000 to 40,000 people were killed. Most of the old city was completely destroyed, including its palaces, mosques, ancient ruins and the famous Azem Palace mansion.
[edit] After the Massacre
After the Hama uprising, the Islamist insurrection was broken, and the Brotherhood has since operated in exile while other factions surrendered or slipped into hiding. Government attitudes in Syria hardened considerably during the uprising, and Assad would rely more on repressive than on political tactics for the remainder of his rule, although a partial re-liberalization began again in the 1990s.
After the massacre, the already evident disarray in the insurgents' ranks increased, and the rebel factions experienced acrimonious internal splits. Particularly damaging to their cause was the deterrent effect of the massacre, as well as the realization that no Sunni uprisings had occurred in the rest of the country in support of the Hama rebels. Most members of the rebel groups fled the country or remained in exile, mainly in Jordan and Iraq, while others would make their way to US, the United Kingdom and Germany. The Islamist groups either made peace with the regime or melted away, while the Muslim Brotherhood -- the largest such group -- split into two factions, after giving up on armed struggle. One, more moderate and recognized by the international Muslim Brotherhood, eventually headquartered itself in the UK where it remains, while another for several years retained a military structure in Iraq, with backing from the government, before rejoining the London-based mainstream.
Western countries denounced the attack as a breach of human rights and a massacre, and the Hama massacre is often raised in indictment of the Assad regime's poor human rights record. Within Syria, mention of the massacre has been strictly suppressed, although the general contours of the events -- and various partisan versions, on all sides -- are well-known throughout the country. When the massacre is publicly referenced, it is only as the "events" or "incident" at Hama.
President Bashar al-Assad claimed the United States could benefit from the Syrian tactics used in the Hama massacre to fight terrorism.[9] |
