Inside Syria: Aleppo’s Christians arm against Islamists ALEPPO, Syria and BEIRUT, Lebanon — As evidence mounts that foreign Islamists are fighting alongside Syria’s increasingly radicalized rebels, Christians in Aleppo and elsewhere are taking up arms, often supplied by the regime.
“We saw what happened to the Christians in Iraq,” Abu George, a Christian resident of Aleppo’s Aziza district told GlobalPost. “What is going on in Aleppo is not a popular revolution for democracy and freedom. The fighters of the so-called Free Syrian Army are radical Sunnis who want to establish an Islamic state.”
While the 30-year-old shopkeeper said he had not received any direct threats from Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels, he fears a repeat of Iraq’s sectarian bloodletting.
Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the UN Human Rights Council estimates around half of Iraq’s 1.4 million Christians have fled the country, driven out by nearly a decade of church bombings, kidnappings and sectarian murder.
The plight of Christians in Iraq has long worried Syria’s estimated two million Christians, around 10 percent of the population. The nightmare of similar persecution has led them to support the secular regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which presents itself as a defender of minorities.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/re...nflict?page=0,0არაერთი ლიდერი მოკლეს გუშინ ალეპოში,სირიის დამცველებმა.
Armed forces continued chasing the fleeing terrorist groups in the area of Ard al-Sabbagh in Salah Eddin neighborhood in Aleppo, killing and injuring a large number of terrorists, some of them holding Arab and African nationalities.
A source in the province told SANA reporter that terrorist Ahmad Haj Qasem bin Abdul-Rahman, one of the leaders of the armed groups in the northern region was killed.
The source added that the authorities inflicted heavy losses among the terrorists' ranks as Yaser Mehi Eddin Abbas and Rajab Mohammad Hamimi were indentified among the dead.
After receiving information about a gathering of terrorists in al-Nairab neighborhood in Aleppo and verifying this information, the authorities raided the terrorists' hideouts and inflicted heavy losses upon them.
On a relevant note, a unit of the Syrian armed forces attacked a terrorist group near Khayata fuel station between al-Sukkari and Salah Eddin neighborhoods, eliminating scores of terrorists.
In the same context, the armed forces on Monday ambushed a terrorist group of 400 to 500 members who were using 30 pick up cars in Handarat town in northern Aleppo.
The armed forces inflicted heavy losses upon terrorists and destroyed their cars.
http://208.43.232.81/eng/337/2012/07/31/434132.htm This post has been edited by 098 on 1 Aug 2012, 09:29
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კრიზისული სიტუაცია და ომი ახლო აღმოსავლეთში, III ნაწილი
