Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: Approximately 126 thousand people killed in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented 125,835 casualties since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 18/3/2011, from the first protestor shot and killed in Der’a, up till 1/12/2013.
The dead include: 44,381 civilians (including 6,627 children and 4,454 women).
19,264 rebel fighters.
2,221 defected soldiers and officers.
31,174 regular soldiers.
2,781 unidentified casualties (documented with pictures and footages).
6,261 non-Syrian and unidentified rebels (most of whom are non-Syrians).
19,256 combatants from the Popular Committees, National Defence Forces, Shabiha, and pro regime informers.
232 fighters from the Lebanese Hezbollah.
265 non-Syrian pro-regime Shi’ite militiamen.
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The death toll does not include more than 16,000 detainees and missing persons inside of regime prisons, nor the more than 5000 regular soldiers and pro regime militants held captive by rebel fighters and the ISIS. Nor does it include kidnapped civilians.
We estimate that there are about 40,000 casualties from regular forces and rebel fighters and non-Syrian fighters that we have not been able to document, because both sides are discreet about the human losses resulting from clashes.
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The SOHR has decided on September to refrain from cooperating and supplying some international bodies with our detailed figures. this decision was taken because of their continued use of them without doing further investigation of these war crimes. We want these crimes to be verified from international bodies and taken to the International Criminal Court so as all oppressors of the Syrian people face justice.
We at the Syrian Observatory renew our appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, to work through all possible means to put an end to the fighting in Syria and aiding the Syrian people in order to transition to a democratic state that is based on principles of freedom, social justice and equality which preserves the rights of all Syrians. Rather than merely focusing on destroying the chemical weapons, since tens of thousands of Syrians are still being killed, maimed and displaced in this conflict with conventional weapons.
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– In Aleppo 10 civilians and 5 rebel fighters were killed. 1 child and 1 man died of wounds received 2 days earlier by aerial bombardment -with explosive barrels- on the al-Souq al-Masqouf area in the al-Babioum city. A man died from the lack of food and medicine in the Aleppo central prison. A man died of wounds received earlier by aerial bombardment on the Qadi A’skar area. A child from the Tal Ref’at town was shot, activists accused the Turkish border guards of killing her.
– In Damascus 12 men, 3 of which are from one family, were executed by the Court of Terrorism under accusations of “committing crimes against the nation”.
– In Homs 7 civilians and 3 rebel fighters were killed.
– In Dera’a 3 civilians and 5 rebel fighters were killed.
– In Hama 6 civilians were killed. 1 man from the Karnaz town was tortured to death by security forces after 3 months of detainment. 4 civilians, including 3 children, were killed by an IED attack in the Karm al-Hourani neighbourhood.
– In Deir Izzor 2 men and and 1 rebel fighter were killed.
– In al-Qneitra 4 civilians and 1 rebel fighter were killed. 3 men were killed by regime bombardment on the Nabe’ al-Sakher town.
– In Idlib 1 man and 3 rebel fighters were killed.
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– 2 men were killed by an IED attack 2 days earlier near the water storage in the Jadrin village of Reef Hama.
– 1 man from the Qarra city of Reef Dimashq was documented as killed, activists accused regular forces of killing him.
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– At least 18 non-Syrian fighters from the ISIS, al-Nusra and rebel factions were killed by bombardment in several provinces.
– 1 al-Nusra fighter was killed by clashes with regular forces in the al-Rashdiya neighbourhood of Deir Izzor city.
– 7 unidentified rebel fighters were killed by clashes and bombardment in several areas.
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– At least 39 regular soldiers were killed by clashes, sniper shots and rocket attacks on checkpoints and centres in several provinces: 12 in Damascus and Reef Dimashq, 10 Aleppo, 4 Hama, 6 al-Qneitra, 2 Homs, 5 Dera’a.
– 19 NDF combatants were killed by clashes and attacks on checkpoints in several areas.
– 1 Hezbollah fighter was killed by clashes with the ISIS, al-Nusra and Islamic battalions in al-Ghouta al-Sharqiya of Reef Dimashq.
– 5 fighters from the Abu al-Fadel al-A’bbass battalion were killed by clashes with the ISIS, al-Nusra and rebel fighters in Reef Dimashq.
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Reef Dimashq: Fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, Kabhat Tahrir al-Qalamoun, the al-ghuraba’ brigade, the Tahrir al-sham brigade and the al-Umariya brigade have fully taken over the historic town of Ma’loula, which is a predominantly christian town. Violent clashes are taking place in the outskirts between the rebel factions and the regime forces supported by the NDF militias.
Damascus: The terrorism court of the Syrian authorities has executed 12 men for “crimes against the nation”. 3 of the victims were from the same family.
2 rockets, thought to be surface-to-surface missiles, fell on the industrial area of the Qadam neighbourhood. No reports of casualties so far. Regime forces went on a series of raids on the commercial shops in the Zahira area, reports that several shop owners were detained and taken to an unknown location.
Raqqah province: SOHR members and several other activists in Raqqah city have confirmed that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has converted the Church of Armenian Martyrs into an ISIS proselytising office. The banner of the ISIS has been hoisted on top of the church, as well as its slogans and indication that it is now a missionary office painted on the outer walls.
Kurds seek autonomy in a federal Syria
MARSEILLE – Syria’s Democratic Union Party, the country’s most powerful Kurdish group, hopes to create an autonomous Kurdish region in a federal Syria, its chief Salih Muslim told AFP in an interview.
Speaking during a visit to France, he confirmed that a commission is in the process of preparing a constitution for the northeastern and northwestern regions of Syria that are majority Kurdish.
“The [Syrian] Kurdistan region will be divided into three autonomous provinces: Kobani [centre], Afrin [west] and Qamishli [east],” he told AFP on Sunday, speaking through a Kurdish-French translator.
“The goal is not to secede, but the Kurds want a federal system in Syria,” he said.
Syria’s Kurds make up around 15 percent of the population and are mostly concentrated in the northeast and northwest of the country, along the Turkish and Iraqi borders.
They have walked a careful line during Syria’s uprising, declining to actively join either the government or the rebels, and instead focusing on building autonomy in Kurdish-majority regions.
The Syrian government withdrew troops from those regions in mid-2012 and focused its energies elsewhere.
The armed wing of the PYD took over security in the areas, and has kept armed rebels out as part of a tacit deal to ensure that regime troops will also stay out.
On November 12, the PYD and other Kurdish parties announced the establishment of an autonomous transitional administration.
“It’s not the creation of an autonomous government. However, 19 representatives were chosen in July to prepare a constitution and an electoral law and to define the mechanisms by which the region will be led,” Muslim said.
“This commission has finished its work, and a date will soon be set for elections,” he added.
The move to consolidate their autonomy on the ground, comes as the armed wing of the PYD battles jihadist fighters that have sought to control Kurdish areas.
The Kurdish region to Syria’s east includes oilfields, and runs along the border with Iraq, providing jihadists a key route for fighters and supplies.
Muslim said Kurdish forces were facing off against jihadists “supported and sent by the Turkish government,” adding that the fight was continuing.
“We have been helped by our people, the Iraqi Kurds, the Iraqi president [Jalal Talabani, a Kurd] and by the PKK,” Muslim said.
The PKK or Kurdistan Workers Party is a Kurdish organization that has fought for rights in Turkey and is considered a terrorist group by the United States and other countries.
Muslim’s PYD is considered close to the group, though it has denied being a Syrian branch.
Muslim insisted that Syria’s Kurdish regions, which are also home to Arab Syrians, would welcome everyone.
“There are three sorts of Arabs among us: there are those with whom we have always lived and who we have fought alongside. We defend the brotherhood between these peoples,” he said.
“There are those who do not belong, Arabs who came from outside, other countries or the region, the jihadists who have burned our homes, and decapitated Kurds,” he added.
“Finally, there are the Arabs who were moved to Kurdistan by force by [former Syrian president] Hafez al-Assad… to Arabise the region,” Muslim said.
“They are victims… and we advocate a peaceful solution for these populations: those who can return to their hometowns should do so and the others can live in peace with the Kurds.”
Reuters: U.N. evidence on Syria war crimes implicates Assad, Pillay says GENEVA – Evidence collected by U.N. investigators probing Syrian war crimes implicates President Bashar al-Assad, United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Monday.
Pillay later denied having direct knowledge of their secret list of suspects, but her revealing remarks about the head of state were at odds with a policy of keeping the identity of alleged perpetrators under wraps pending any judicial process.
The U.N. investigators, who collect testimony in utmost secrecy and independently from Pillay, have previously said the evidence points to the highest levels of Syria’s government, but have not named Assad or any other officials publicly.
They have compiled secret lists of suspects and handed them to Pillay for safe storage, in hope that one day suspects will face trial for violations including torture and mass killings.
“They point to the fact that the evidence indicates responsibility at the highest level of government, including the head of state,” Pillay told a news conference.
But Pillay said even she cannot unseal the confidential lists, and insisted she was only repeating what the investigators led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro had said.
Asked to clarify her remarks, she said: “Let me say that I have not said that a head of state is a suspect. I was quoting the fact-finding mission, which said that based on their facts, responsibility points at the highest level.”
World powers should make accountability for crimes committed in the civil war a priority ahead of Syrian peace talks set for January 22, she added.
The question of whether Assad can remain in power after the fighting stops has been one of the major areas of disagreement between the United States and Russia, the two main sponsors of the peace talks.
Pillay and Pinheiro have repeatedly called for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a move that could lead to the prosecution of suspects on the secret list.
Western countries that want Assad to step down should either stop dreaming or forget attending peace talks in January, the Syrian government said last Wednesday.
But Pillay, a former judge at the ICC, said perpetrators of crimes must face justice.
“Accountability should be key priority of international community, and I want to make this point again and again as the Geneva 2 talks begin,” she said. “I reiterate my call to all member states to refer the situation to the ICC.”
Both the Syrian government and opposition groups appear to be imposing sieges on contested areas as “a form of collective punishment”, in violation of international humanitarian law, she said.
“Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited,” she said. “Now I mentioned some of these very serious factors, because as we look at the indictments before the International Criminal Court, these are some of the acts for which leaders have been indicted.”
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Islamists take Syrian Christian town, monastery: state mediaBEIRUT – Islamist fighters in Syria have taken over the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula and are holding several nuns in a monastery there, state news agency SANA said on Monday.
Fighting for the town, about five km (three miles) from the main road linking Damascus to Homs, is part of a wider struggle between rebel fighters and President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for control of the strategic central Syrian highway.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front had captured the old quarter of Maaloula after several days of fighting.
Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said he could not confirm the SANA report that Nusra fighters had stormed the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla and were holding several nuns captive.
But the monastery is in the old part of Maaloula, which is now under the control of the Nusra Front and other rebels, he said. Four rebel fighters were killed in fierce fighting on Monday as the army and pro-Assad militia fought to retake the district, Abdulrahman said.
Restrictions by Syrian authorities make it difficult to verify accounts from inside the country.
The town was the scene of heavy fighting in September, when it changed hands four times in a series of attacks and counter-assaults by rebels and government forces. At the time, the Mother Superior at Mar Thecla denied reports circulated by pro-government groups that rebels had pillaged Christian sites.
The latest fighting coincides with a government offensive to secure other towns on the road from Damascus to the city of Homs and Assad’s Alawite heartland overlooking the Mediterranean.
Control of the road would help secure Assad’s grip over central Syria, and would also enable safe passage for hundreds of tonnes (1 tonne = 1.102 metric tons) of chemical agents which are due to be shipped out of the country by the end of the year for destruction.
The fighting prevented the head of the international mission overseeing the elimination of those weapons from going by road from Damascus to the port of Latakia during a visit last week.
Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint mission of the United Nations and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said she had to travel by helicopter instead.
“Security remains a key challenge for all. The destruction of a chemical weapons program has never taken place under such challenging and dangerous conditions,” Kaag told delegates of the OPCW in The Hague.
In the last fortnight Assad’s forces have extended their control in Qara and Deir Attiyah, two towns near the road, and have been fighting to take a third, Nabak.
State television said on Monday the army had “completely eliminated armed terrorist groups” around Deir Attiyah and Nabak. The Observatory’s Abdulrahman said rebels were still in part of Nabak but the western sector of the town, which is closest to the Damascus-Homs road, was under army control.
Before Syria’s 2-1/2-year-old conflict erupted, Maaloula attracted both Christian and Muslim pilgrims. Some of its residents still speak Aramaic, the language of Christ, and the monastery of Mar Thecla had a reputation for miraculous cures.
Syria’s Christian community, about 10 percent of the population, is wary of the rising power of Islamist groups within the rebel movement. A small percentage of Christians so far have taken up arms in the civil war that broadly pits minorities, in particular Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, against the Sunni Muslim majority.
(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon)