A Rare Outbreak of Scepticism in Syrian Coverage - but was it justified?
A number of British media outlets were obviously shocked by Vladimir Putin’s sneer that it was unwise to arm Syrian rebels who ‘eat the organs’ of their enemies. Reporters used words such as ‘apparently’ and ‘allegedly’ to qualify the Russian President’s words. Nice to see some scepticism about war propaganda in Syria for once, as the atrocity tales of the rebels tend to have been believed without qualification, especially by the hopelessly partial BBC, as has the rather vague assertion that President Assad has used chemical weapons ‘against his own people’ (I ask again, is this better or worse than using them against other people’s people? Is there any major nation whose armed forces have never been used to put down uprisings or indeed drive people from their homes on its own territory. It’s hard to work out what else the US Army was doing in the last third of the 19th century).
Readers of this blog and my column will be familiar with this story, about a Syrian rebel leader biting into the heart of a dead soldier, which would have marched across every front page in ‘the West’, and led every TV bulletin for hours , had it been one of President Assad’s troops doing it to a rebel soldier. Yet it is an interesting reflection on the general bias towards intervention that these major news outlets were willing to be sceptical about it last night and this morning. For there really isn’t much doubt about it.
Well, the story appeared most fully in Time Magazine on 12th May, and the YouTube video, which I will leave you to find for yourself if you want, is pretty easily available.
I wrote in my column on June 2nd about
‘…a gentleman called Abu Sakkar, [who] recently publicly sank his teeth into the bleeding heart of a freshly-slain government soldier.’
Was I making it up, or taking the information too readily on trust? You be the judge.
Here are some significant extracts from the ‘Time’ story (there’s a link to the whole thing here: http://world.time.com/2013/05/12/atrocities-will-be-televised-they-syrian-war-takes-a-turn-for-the-worse/#ixzz2WTQtGsYr )
'Aryn Baker at TIME (May 12, 2013)
‘The video starts out like so many of the dozens coming out of the war in Syria every day, with the camera hovering over the body of a dead Syrian soldier. But the next frame makes it clear why this video, smuggled out of the city of Homs and into Lebanon with a rebel fighter, and obtained by TIME in April, is particularly shocking. In the video a man who is believed to be a rebel commander named Khalid al-Hamad, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Sakkar, bends over the government soldier, knife in hand. With his right hand he moves what appears to be the dead man’s heart onto a flat piece of wood or metal lying across the body. With his left hand he pulls what appears to be a lung across the open cavity in the man’s chest. According to two of Abu Sakkar’s fellow rebels, who said they were present at the scene, Abu Sakkar had cut the organs out of the man’s body. The man believed to be Abu Sakkar then works his knife through the flesh of the dead man’s torso before he stands to face the camera, holding an organ in each hand. “I swear we will eat from your hearts and livers, you dogs of Bashar,” he says, referring to supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Off camera, a small crowd can be heard calling out “Allahu akbar” — God is great. Then the man raises one of the bloodied organs to his lips and starts to tear off a chunk with his teeth.’
The story adds:
‘Two TIME reporters first saw the video in April in the presence of several of Abu Sakkar’s fighters and supporters, including his brother. They all said the video was authentic. We later obtained a copy. Since then TIME has been trying to ensure that the footage is not digitally manipulated in any way — a faked film like this would be powerful propaganda for the regime, which portrays the rebels as terrorists — and, as yet, TIME has not been able to confirm its integrity.’
Then there’s this
In which Abu Sakkar himself does not deny the action when given the opportunity to do so, but instead offers excuses for it (by claiming film of atrocities was found on the victim’s mobile phone).
And this account
in which the same man exposes himself as a serious sectarian hate-merchant and boasts of other atrocities.
‘Al-Hamad, who is Sunni and harbors a sectarian hatred for Alawite Muslims, said he has another gruesome video of his killing a government soldier from the Alawite faith. (Syrian President Bashar Assad is Alawite; the conflict in Syria is increasingly sectarian.) “Hopefully we will slaughter all of them [Alawites]. I have another video clip that I will send to them. In the clip, I am sawing another shabiha [progovernment militiaman] with a saw. The saw we use to cut trees. I sawed him into small pieces and large ones.” Al-Hamad also explained that even though both sides of the conflict in Syria are using video clips of their own brutal actions to intimidate the other, he believes his clip would have particular impact on the regime’s troops. “They film as well, but after what I did hopefully they will never step into the area where Abu Sakkar is,” he said, using his nom de guerre and referring to the part of Syria he currently controls.’
Human Rights Watch are reported to have validated the original evisceration video here
So, I think we can be pretty sure it’s the real thing. Abu Sakkar is in the ‘Farouq Brigades’, who are not Salafists or part of the militia supposedly linked to ‘Al Qaeda’. They are classified as ‘moderate Islamists’. Therefore they are the sort of people to whom William Hague wants to send weapons.
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