Syria: Damascus rocked by explosions as rebels seek revege

THE smell of burnt flesh and rotting bodies lingered in the air and human body parts lay strewn around the small village of Qubair, according to witnesses who gained access to the site of the massacre in Syria where 78 people were reported killed on Wednesday.

Rebels said president Bashar Assad’s forces had been responsible for the slaughter in which people in the Sunni Muslim village were allegedly shot, stabbed, or burned alive. But Mr Assad’s government blamed “terrorists” and said the number of dead was far fewer.

The full horror of what would appear to be one of the bloodiest incidents since the start of the Syrian uprising 15 months ago is beginning to emerge, and was accompanied by videos of mutilated children’s bodies and charred corpses.

Among the journalists who saw the aftermath was BBC reporter Paul Danahar, who accompanied the United Nations monitors to the small hamlet, which had a population of about 150 and is some 15 miles from the city of Hama.

Danahar said it was clear a “terrible crime” had taken place. He said that in one house, he saw “pieces of brains lying on the floor”.

He went on: “There was a tablecloth covered in blood and flesh and someone had tried to mop the blood up by pushing it into the corner, but seems they had given up because there was so much of it around.”

Blood was in pools around a room, Danahar said, adding: “Pieces of flesh lay among the scattered possession.”

His Twitter report said: “What we didn’t find were any bodies of people. What we did find were tracks on the tarmac [that] the UN said looked like armoured personnel carriers or tanks.

“Whoever did this may have acted with mindless violence but attempts to cover up the details of the atrocity are calculated & clear.”

UN spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh said one house had been damaged by rocket fire and bullets and that another was burnt, with bodies still inside.

“It had burnt flesh inside and … a stench of burnt flesh. You could smell dead bodies and you could also see body parts in and around the village,” she said after returning to Damascus.

A 35-year-old female who claimed to have survived the attack described what she alleged was the regime’s security forces arriving in the village. “When it happened, I was 200 metres away. I was taking some food to my brother who was out irrigating our land,” she said.

“[When the attack began] my brother ran back to our house. They shot him in the leg, and hit him at his head. And then they placed him on a tank and took him. They were shouting; ‘Assad or we burn the country’.”

Meanwhile, explosions echoed over Damascus yesterday as Syrian troops clashed with rebels in some of the heaviest fighting seen in the capital.

Troops also unleashed a heavy assault to retake a rebel-held district in the flashpoint city of Homs, blasting it with heavy bombardment.

The fighting in Damascus erupted in the district of Kfar Souseh, where, the night before, armed rebels took part in a big anti-government rally – a rare and bold public appearance by the fighters in the capital.

The clashes began when they attacked a government checkpoint in the morning, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It and another activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), said clashes broke out in three nearby districts in the capital. There was no word on civilian casualties, but the LCC said three rebels had been killed.

In Homs, regime troops were trying to advance into the opposition-held district of Khaldiyeh from three sides, battling with armed rebels trying to stop them, one activist said.“