Det er da godt, at vores udenrigsminister har overblik over situationen i Syrien (Helt færdig med Assad), for det begynder at knibe for os andre. Hæren er bomstærk, våben og penge strømmer ind til de forskellige grupper fra deres forskellige aktionærer. Der er linet op til et gigantisk etnisk-religiøst myrderi, ingen lader til at kunne gøre noget ved foreløbig. Her er et kort over Helvedet. Europa om 50 år eller om bare 20, som det argumenteres for visse hårdt, ramte områder? Syrien er ikke et Libyen – forresten fra idag: At least 16 killed in two days of Libya clashes – det er et potentielt Bosnien eller værre.

It was, in the words of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, the “tipping point” in the Syria conflict: a savage massacre of over 90 people, predominantly women and children, for which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad was immediately blamed by virtually the entirety of the Western media. Within days of the first reports of the Houla massacre, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, and several other Western countries announced that they were expelling Syria’s ambassadors in protest.

But according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. For its account of the massacre, the report cites opponents of Assad, who, however, declined to have their names appear in print out of fear of reprisals from armed opposition groups.

According to the article’s sources, the massacre occurred after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside of Houla. The roadblocks had been set up to protect nearby Alawi majority villages from attacks by Sunni militias. The rebel attacks provoked a call for reinforcements by the besieged army units. Syrian army and rebel forces are reported to have engaged in battle for some 90 minutes, during which time “dozens of soldiers and rebels” were killed.

“According to eyewitness accounts,” the FAZ report continues, the massacre occurred during this time. Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population are Sunnis. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator.Report: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre, Channel 4 news reporter says he was ‘deliberately set up by rebels to be shot’.