Syria Update: Tartus – Latakia (Part 5) December 19, 2013

Syria Update - Tartus – Latakia (Part 5) - December 19, 2013

As we were passing the beautiful Latakia Mountains, we did not know what we were about to see that day.

Hambushiyah village. After the barbarous Wahhabi, who had come here from across the Turkish border, had raided it, the village has become virtually void of inhabitants. One of its former residents told us about the fate of the village as he sat on the grass close by the ruins of his former house.

It must have been hard to be listening to his story even to heavens above, as the heavy clouds kept shedding the teardrops of rain upon us, in the duration of his narrative. Unfortunately, you will not be able to see his painful eyes. For obvious reasons, we will not show his face. Perhaps, some time later. When this horror of war is over and Syria will have peace return to its lands.

“On August 4, 2013, at 4am, all the residents of this village were sound asleep. Suddenly, a large number of mercenaries of various nationalities broke into the village. I saw them with my own eyes. Among them, there were Chechens, Libyans, Afghans, Egyptians, Saudis. I could tell them by their speech. There were women among them, too. They were accompanied by “sheiks”, who were shouting “Allah Akbar!” and were calling them to do killings. Many of them had swords which they used to strike the villagers. The first group of militants, they were chopping everybody indiscriminately. The second group, they were slitting people's throats. The third one, they were taking people captive and shooting them.

“The kept shouting “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” all the time. There were also cheers like “Islamic Front of Iraq and Sham”. However, those mercenary killers have nothing to do with religion and God. Islam has already rejected them. A Muslim will never cut people, dismember their bodies, and fornicate. They had taken captive 115 people from out village. Among them, 68 children aged 8 months to 10 years old. They even took 75-year-old women, those who were old and sick of asthma, diabetes, and other illnesses. Children, young women, the elderly, nobody escaped them. They took pity on nobody. Nothing and no one could be safe with them, neither the people, nor the trees, nor the rocks. Even our cow that was providing us with food they took away along with them.

“I saw how they were cutting women. They were great in number, 4000 – 5000. They would come into their houses and cut them. They ripped the pregnant women’s abdomens and took their unborn babies out. A terrible crime against the poor people has taken place in this place. These people are innocent. Our only fault is that we support our government. But we will continue to support our president, no matter what happens.

“I want to thank Russian government and Russian people, and all the countries that support our just cause. They call themselves Islamists, and religious people. But no religion has anything to do with them. Religion is love. It is forgiveness. Religion is for God. Motherland is for everybody. What am I to blame for if I was born into this place and belong to a certain religion? Whether I am a Christian, or an Alawite, or a Druse, or a Sunni. It is God who has decided so. How can religion cut children and dismember their bodies.

“I have lost 42 members of my family. Some of them have been killed; some of them have been kidnapped. My mother is 75. What has she done to them? My son is three years old. My nephew is nine months old. Another my nephew has been killed. What was their fault? Did they fight for the government? However, as long as we live in this land, we will continue fighting for this government and for this president. There is no better president than this, and perhaps there will never be, in this world.

“I would like to say thank you to Putin! I wish that he defeated his Islamist enemies! What kind of religion is that of theirs? And what kind of person can accept such a religion? How can a Chechen intend to teach me how to be free? A Libyan, who had destroyed his own country; is he going to teach me democracy and freedom? This here was freedom! This is a country of peace and love. Thank God for everything!

“We will fight to the end! Until we have done away with all those Chechen, Somali, Libyan, Egyptian, and Saudi mercenaries. Who is that Bandar? He does not remember his own father! He ships weapons and mercenary fighters here to kill our women and children. They had burned down everything. They have destroyed our harvest fields and ruined our houses. Despite that, we will stand here, holding on to our land. You’re welcome.”

Another one of the remaining villagers noticed us and came up to greet us. He, too, began to tell us about what had happened here.

“They began to shoot from every direction, from that mountain and from that mountain. They were shouting “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar!” When we heard the shootings, we ran down to the gorge. I have lost 12 cousins. They were killed inside their houses. All members of my family, some are killed and others have been kidnapped. The ages of the kidnapped are from 5 to 15.”

“Why have you stayed here?”

“Where would I go? I have no place to go. I had taken my family to the city and here there is my house. You would not believe how they were destroying the trees, the harvest, and the houses here. They were firing rockets and shouting “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar”. Thank God, the ravine is close. We made it to it fast. They were firing in all directions and shouting “Allah Akbar”.

“This is a place where a rocket landed. Everything died in flames, he walnut trees. Everything burned.”

“There was a mass grave down here. There were 86 dead bodies from Hambushiyah, Mbati und Bouta. In this mass grave, a number of women were buried whose bodies were mutilated. There were two decapitated brothers of mine. Initially, there was a small water pool here. They put the bodies in it and covered them with dirt. The youngest victim was 15 years of age. The oldest one was 90. One old man with a limp leg was suffering from gangrene. But he did not escape, either. He was also killed. His name was Dschamil Yassim. They killed 86 people here. There is another grave alongside the road where 13 bodies were buried. They butchered a cow on top of the graves so that nobody would figure it out that that is a mass grave there.

“That is the kind of Islam that Bandar, who himself knows no God, has been dispatching to us. Hamad and Erdogan are calling us to freedom. What kind of freedom is this? Freedom to kill? Freedom to sever [dead bodies]? We do know what freedom is! There has always been peace and security in Syria. It is a country of peace where everybody lived peacefully. This is the kind of peace they have sent out to us [- a mortar shell].”

Unfortunately, this is just one of many similar tragedies that had taken place here. Shakuhi village has no residents left in it, too.

The savage hordes of Satanists were moving down those roads from Turkey. They used to stockpile their weapons in that cave over there while preparing for their barbaric – abhorrent in the eyes of God – crimes against innocent children, women, and the elderly.

Those lonely half-ruined houses, the witnesses to all those mindless crimes, seemed to be silently staring in the air in front of them with those black empty eye sockets of their windows, as if praying for justice.

We do hope that all those responsible for that savage manslaughter, including its perpetrators, who can hardly be called humans or religious people at all, eventually will be punished by both people and God.

Contributors: Vasily Pavlov, Andrey Filatov, Igor Nadyrshin, Victor Kuznetsov, Marat Musin.

ANNA-News, Latakia, Syria