Opposition: Assad militia ‘assigned’ to avenge troop killings, target civilians

Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — An Alawite militia sponsored by the regime of President
Bashar Assad has been given a free hand in efforts to quell the Sunni revolt
in Syria.

Opposition sources and Western diplomats asserted that the Assad regime
has removed all restrictions on the Shabiha militia in central and eastern
Syria.

Opposition sources claimed that the Syrian Army and the feared Shabiha militia carried out the Houla atrocities, though the Assad regime insisted “armed terrorists” were to blame.

The sources said Shabiha was being used to target Sunni civilian communities in an effort to intimidate Sunni rebel militias.

“Shabiha has been assigned to take revenge for the killing of Assad’s
troops,” a diplomat said. “When the rebels are successful in one operation, Shabiha responds by killing Sunni civilians.”

The sources said Shabiha had been deployed with Assad’s military and security forces during 2011 and early 2012. But they said Shabiha was now operating without direct command from either army or intelligence officers.

“What usually happens is that the Army shells an area and then Shabiha comes in to kill,” an opposition source said.

Shabiha is believed to contain up to 20,000 Alawites and Kurds and
operates mostly in eastern and central Syria. The sources said Shabiha was
linked to the mass killing of civilians in Houla and Kubeir in May and June.

At least 80 civilians, many of them women and children, were reported
to have been killed in Kubeir on June 6. On May 25, 108 Sunnis were reported
killed in Houla, also located in the Hama province.

“What a few media have reported on what happened in Al Kubeir, in the
Hama region, is completely false,” a Syrian government statement said.

Shabiha is said to have been established to protect the Alawite elite
in the early 1980s by Assad’s uncle, Rifat, a former vice president. The
Alawite militia has been used in operations meant to terrorize civilians,
particularly the majority Sunni community. Many in Shabiha were said to be
engaged in extortion, drugs and arms trafficking.

“They serve as spare muscle with a gun,” Syrian analyst Yassin Saleh
said. “They enjoy immunity, promotion, preferences at schools and
universities, not to mention direct wages, such as the booty acquired in
fighting the current revolution.”

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