BEIRUT, Lebanon At least 60 Shiite Muslim residents of a village in eastern Syria were killed in a reprisal raid by rebels, the government and opposition figures said Wednesday, the latest in a string of massacres underscoring the sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict.
A Syrian official called the killings, which were reported to have taken place on Tuesday in Hatlah, a village in the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zour, a massacre of civilians. Anti-government activists said most of the dead were pro-government militia fighters who had attacked rebels one day earlier. But some of the activists nonetheless condemned the Hatlah attack as a destructive act of revenge that showed the powerlessness of moderates among the mostly Sunni rebels to rein in extremists.
What was not in dispute was that several battalions of Sunni rebels, including members of extremist Islamist groups, stormed the village and, in video posted online by antigovernment activists, could be seen setting houses on fire as they shouted sectarian slogans, calling Shiites dogs, apostates and infidels.
This is your end, you dogs, a man off camera said as he panned across what he said were the corpses of pug-nosed Shiites, including one with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the head. We have raised the banner of There Is no God but God over the houses of the rejectionist Shiite apostates, one fighter chanted in another clip as a black cloud billowed above the village and jubilant gunmen brandished black flags often used by the extremist Al Nusra Front and other Islamist fighting groups.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/wo...yria.html?_r=0
A Syrian official called the killings, which were reported to have taken place on Tuesday in Hatlah, a village in the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zour, a massacre of civilians. Anti-government activists said most of the dead were pro-government militia fighters who had attacked rebels one day earlier. But some of the activists nonetheless condemned the Hatlah attack as a destructive act of revenge that showed the powerlessness of moderates among the mostly Sunni rebels to rein in extremists.
What was not in dispute was that several battalions of Sunni rebels, including members of extremist Islamist groups, stormed the village and, in video posted online by antigovernment activists, could be seen setting houses on fire as they shouted sectarian slogans, calling Shiites dogs, apostates and infidels.
This is your end, you dogs, a man off camera said as he panned across what he said were the corpses of pug-nosed Shiites, including one with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the head. We have raised the banner of There Is no God but God over the houses of the rejectionist Shiite apostates, one fighter chanted in another clip as a black cloud billowed above the village and jubilant gunmen brandished black flags often used by the extremist Al Nusra Front and other Islamist fighting groups.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/wo...yria.html?_r=0