Sunday 9 September 2012

Video of the attack on the Kurdish area of Aleppo – Sheikh Maqsoud – 6 September 2012, from Ronahi TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yNO6af5Iqo&feature=player_embedded

and the funerals of four of the victims that were held in Efrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wcS0aCupzg&feature=player_embedded#!

Kurds out on the streets: Qamishli, Efrin, Deyrik, Kobani and more https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ronahi-TV/210892315647706

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Anger builds as Syrian Kurds hold funerals for Aleppo bombing victims: http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/9/syriakurd613.htm - posted yesterday
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There were revenge killings

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The People’s Council of Western Kurdistan condemn the brutal massacre in Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, Kurdish populated area in Aleppo.

The People’s Council of Western Kurdistan condemn the massacre on 6 September 2012 committed by Syrian brutal air craft bombardment and shelling of the Kurdish populated Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood in Aleppo, targeting civilian Kurdish people and resulting in the killing of 21 civilians and wounding more than 45 civilians, among them children and women. Most of the victims were from Afrin, where the victims were buried in a mass demonstration condemning the killings and chanting to protect the Kurdish region from the violence. The People Protection Units (YPG) warned the brutal regime which has lost the legitimacy by killing its own people to stop provoking and targeting the Kurdish area which is controlled by Kurds, and stop dragging the whole country into violent civil war,  and they promised to protect the Kurdish region from the regime’s brutal violence.

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The implications of recent campaign of arrests against young Kurds

The West Kurdistan Youth Organization is calling young Kurds to a refuse compulsory service in the regime’s army and shift instead to volunteer in regime army to defend for Kurdish people against injustice and aggression .
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Syria funeral is focus of Kurdish anger
A bombing in Aleppo that killed a woman, two of her children and their young cousin triggers outrage among Kurds at a village funeral and throughout the region.

EFRIN, Syria — The mourners chanted, “Long live Kurdistan!” as the doleful cortege moved slowly toward the hillside cemetery, past the olive groves and pomegranate orchards.

Funerals have long become settings for political theater in strife-ridden Syria, where each side has tried to turn burials of war dead into highly public affirmations of their adversary’s barbarity.

But the procession Friday through the village of Basuta wasn’t just another instance of a funeral becoming a rallying cry against the government of President Bashar Assad.

In this case, the victims — a woman, two of her children and their young cousin, all killed Thursday when bombs fell on an Aleppo neighborhood — were members of Syria’s Kurdish community, the nation’s largest ethnic minority.

The deaths triggered widespread outrage in the region, a vast expanse of heavily farmed valleys and rocky highlands dotted with Roman-era ruins and other ancient sites.

“This was a criminal act,” declared Said Najjar, an official of the Kurdish National Council, who attended the funeral along with other Kurdish leaders. “It is proof of the regime’s criminality.”

Whether the bombing would push Kurds into a more active role in the almost 18-month rebellion remained unclear.

Some Kurdish leaders have avoided taking sides in Syria’s raging conflict. Instead, they have seized on the state’s debilitated status to gain de facto control of Kurdish areas, including this sprawling township — where Assad’s administration left months ago and Kurdish groups have filled the void.

Several officials of the most powerful and best-armed Kurdish faction, the Democratic Union Party (known as the PYD, its Kurdish initials), said Friday that the group was committed to maintaining its “neutral” stance in Syria’s civil conflict. The PYD has had an uneasy relationship with the rebel Free Syrian Army, dominated by Sunni Arabs, though the Kurdish party has denied charges of collaborating with the Assad government.

At the funeral, a contingent of camouflage-clad Free Syrian Army fighters were among those who paid their respects.

“We are one people, Kurdish and Arab,” a rebel who gave his name as Abu Abdo, 32, said afterward.

He and several comrades had come from the front-line battle in Aleppo’s Salahuddin district, they said.

One PYD official, however, questioned whether the Kurds may have been unintended victims of wayward bombs. “This has to be investigated,” said the official, who like others interviewed declined to be named.

The four died in an aerial bombing strike on the Sheik Maqsood neighborhood in Aleppo, according to Kurdish authorities. The district is home to many migrants from Kurdish villages in Aleppo province.

The four buried here Friday were among at least 21 killed and 38 injured in the bombing, officials said. Funerals were also held in other area villages.

For those gathered for the public funeral, there seemed to be no question that the bombing was a deliberate strike on a Kurdish civilian enclave.

“We will take revenge!” mourners declared in one of a number of rhythmic chants assailing Assad’s government.

Women wearing head scarves and dressed in traditional Kurdish long dresses ululated in grief. Many knew the family and couldn’t hold back tears.

“None of us could believe this happened,” said a woman who described herself as a relative of the deceased mother, identified as Amina Mohamad Hassan, 35. “We heard that there had been a bombing near the Marouf mosque in the neighborhood and were so worried. Then we learned it was Amina and her family. That was shocking.”

The woman’s dead children were identified as Jowan, 7, and Shirin, 3. The cousin wasn’t identified.

The father, described as a laborer who has worked as a shoemaker and taxi driver, was seriously injured and remained hospitalized in Aleppo, said friends and relatives of the family. The couple’s two other children also survived.

A man who gave his name as Mustafa said he witnessed the attack and helped bring victims to the hospital. He said a government aircraft was responsible. The Syrian military has used aircraft to devastating effect in their battle to push back rebels in Aleppo.

The first bomb struck about 6:20 p.m. Thursday, hitting a four-story apartment building where the family lived, Mustafa said. Then, a few minutes later, as volunteers struggled to remove victims from the smoldering rubble, another bomb exploded on the street outside.

“People who tried to rescue people were killed by the second bomb,” Mustafa said.

The four coffins, draped in Kurdish flags, were taken to the cemetery in pickup trucks and then carried to the graves. Loudspeakers played songs celebrating Kurdish “martyrs” of past struggles. A speaker who was no more than 12 years old used a microphone to lead antigovernment chants.

Beneath a blazing sun, the four victims were lowered into their final resting place, amid the wails of loved ones and volleys of ceremonial gunfire from rebel fighters positioned on the hillside above.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
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Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: 6.15pm UK time

Final death toll for Sunday 9/9/2012: More than 180 Syrians were killed

The dead: 98 unarmed civilians (13 were children), 14 rebel fighters, 8 defected soldiers, and 30 members of the Syrian armed forces.

*** 4 people, including a woman, were killed, and more than 30 others were injured severely by 2 IEDs targeting a bus carrying civilians on the Homs-Mesyaf road.***

*** 27 people were killed

 by the bombings in the al-Kurra al-Ardiya area and the Halab al-Jadida (New Aleppo) neighbourhood of Aleppo. It is still unknown whether the victims of the explosions were civilians or regime forces.***7 civilian deaths that took place over the week, in different parts of Aleppo city have just been documented by the SOHR this Sunday

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NOW! Lebanon
[local time]  21:31 UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Cairo on Sunday where he will hold talks with League officials ahead of an expected visit to Damascus.
 18:12 Sunday’s death toll has increased to 77, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 17:28 Syrian filmmaker Tamer al-Awam, 34, has been killed in the northern city of Aleppo, the opposition Syrian National Council said on Sunday.
 16:52 Sunday’s death toll has increased to 64, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 15:53 Syrian forces killed 37 people on Sunday, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 15:22 Syrian forces shelled Edleb’s Maarat an-Naaman killing one and injuring seven, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 15:09 The new UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has spoken by telephone with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and is contemplating a trip to Tehran.
 13:40 A bomb attack on a bus carrying civilians and troops in the central Syrian province of Homs killed at least four people and wounded dozens more on Sunday, state media and a rights watchdog said.
 13:17 Syrian regime jets bombed the Edleb town of Deir Sonbol, Al-Jazeera quoted activists as saying.
 12:47 The Syrian army has been shelling the towns of Zabadani and Yelda in the district of Damascus, Al-Jazeera quoted activists as saying.
 10:02 A YouTube video purportedly filmed on Saturday shows water flowing onto an Aleppo street. The activist shooting the video says regime airplane shelled the main drinking water line of Aleppo. The water covered up two underground stories of the building shown in the video, causing severe damage to its shops.
 9:20 Syrian government forces bombarded a central neighborhood of Aleppo on Sunday after a day of fierce clashes with rebels who tried to take the regime-controlled district, a watchdog said.
 8:15 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday a new UN Security Council resolution on Syria would be pointless if it had “no teeth,” as President Bashar al-Assad would ignore it.
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BBC: Syria resolution ‘needs teeth’

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says a Russian plan for a UN Security Council resolution on Syria will be pointless without consequences.

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Reuters: Simultaneous bombs hit army compounds in Aleppo

AMMAN – Two bombs exploded simultaneously on Sunday night next to Syrian army compounds in the northern city of Aleppo, killing and wounding scores of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, residents and opposition activists said. | Video

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Guardian: ‘Dozens killed or injured’ as Syrian warplanes strike Aleppo