Reporting Atrocities
Syrian government forces and militia loyal to the Assad regime are killing and sexually abusing children and using them as human shields, the UN says, amid fears that the conflict is intensifying.
Kofi Annan said he was “gravely concerned” about the escalation of fighting in Syria, citing the shelling of opposition areas in central Homs province and reports of mortar, helicopter and tank attacks in the town of Haffa and its surrounding villages in Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast. The US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland voiced fears about reports that the regime “may be organising another massacre” in Latakia, where UN monitors have been impeded.
The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s annual report on children and armed conflict during 2011 included Syrian government forces and the allied shabiha for the first time on a list of 52 governments and armed groups that recruit, kill or sexually attack children in armed conflicts.
There is substantial evidence that the Houla massacre was carried out by the rebels: http://bit.ly/LPHFir. There is also evidence that many reports coming out of the western media are lies: http://bit.ly/LPJv2H. There is evidence that there is a US plan to take down the governments of several Middle East states including Syria:http://vimeo.com/38951836.
Following revelations about the real perpetrators of Houla we see a spate of reports about the Syrian army using children as human shields and also torturing and abusing them. This is reminiscent of reports in the first Iraq war that babies were being thrown out of incubators and reports that Gaddafi’s army were being given viagra to help them carry out rapes. These proved to be lies. While I’m not saying that the reports of Syrian regime abuses are all untrue I think we would be justified in treating all news reports with a high degree of analysis and scepticism.