“During weeks of planning before the assault, rebel fighters were given strict orders to use the offensive to show themselves as “moderate Muslims” and natural allies of the West.” Time for Obama to send them more weapons, and the UN to issue another condemnation of…Israel. “Dispatch: Syria rebels ‘burned down churches and destroyed Christian graves,'” by Ruth Sherlock, the Telegraph, January 3, 2015 (thanks to Angry):
When insurgents stormed Kessab, they posted pictures of themselves protecting ancient churches. But a visit to the Syrian town tells a different story.
Rain seeped into the tombs through shattered flagstones. Nearby, marble crosses lay in pieces. Plastic flowers, once lovingly placed on a grave, were torn and stamped into the earth.
Beside the desecrated graveyard in the Syrian town of Kessab stood the Holy Trinity Armenian Evangelical church. Its library, pews and altar had all been burned by arsonists.
The perpetrators had shown both purpose and glee in their destruction of Christian sites in this ancient Armenian town. Statues were riddled with bullets and Islamist slogans were scrawled across the walls of homes and shops.
Once a haven from Syria’s civil war, nestled in the hills of Latakia province, Kessab gained international fame when it was captured by rebels last spring in a surprise offensive that forced the town’s 2,500 Armenian Christians to flee.Turkey was widely accused of helping the insurgents to capture Kessab, despite the participation in the attack of Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.
But the Syrian armed forces took back the town in June after it had endured three months of rebel occupation. The Telegraph travelled to the area on a facility trip with the Syrian regime to witness the aftermath of the battle.
The desecration of Kessab’s churches contradicts the claims of Syrian rebels that their fighters are non-sectarian protectors of Christian residents and heritage.
The evidence also fails to support counter-claims by pro-government groups that Armenian Christians were “massacred” during the rebel offensive.
When this assault began last year, Turkey’s then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was facing a general election and his rebel allies in Syria were losing ground to regime forces. The offensive on Kessab was intended to bolster both the insurgents and their Turkish backers.
During weeks of planning before the assault, rebel fighters were given strict orders to use the offensive to show themselves as “moderate Muslims” and natural allies of the West.
Kessab is protected by a mountain range, acting as a natural fortress against invasion, and the Turkish border almost surrounds the town. It was only when Turkish troops allowed free movement across the frontier that the rebels were able to storm and capture Kessab.
In the first hours, all appeared to be going according to plan. Insurgents, including those from the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, posed for pictures showing them protecting churches and talking gently to local people.
About 30 Armenians, who had been too elderly or frail to escape the offensive, were placed on minibuses and driven to Turkey, where they were given a warm reception that was covered in minute detail by state television.
Ignoring the participation of Islamist extremists in the offensive – including a large number of foreign jihadists – Ahmed Jarba, the head of the Syrian National Coalition, travelled to Kessab and claimed a victory.
But immediately after the media spotlight fell away, residents of Kessab told the Telegraph that the desecration began.
“They took photographs to show they were looking after the churches, and then set them alight,” said Father Miron Avedissian, priest of the Armenian Apostolic church that was largely destroyed. “It all still happened in the first day.”
If Western-backed rebels tried to stop the rampage by their extremist allies, there was little evidence of a struggle.
Doors, walls and shopfronts on the town’s narrow streets are covered in scrawled messages declaring “There is no God but Allah”.
The white paint is still fresh on the walls of Father Avedissian’s church as he tries to repair the damage.
Tufts of burned carpet on the staircase, and partly melted air-conditioning units on the walls, show the intensity of the fire that wrecked its interior.
The priest flicked through photographs on his iPhone: one image showed himself inside the church, pointing to a vandalised painting of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Outside, the crosses carved into the stone over the wide arch doors were riddled with bullet holes.
Nearby, the Holy Trinity Armenian Evangelical church was little more than a burned shell. Walls were blackened by smoke; wooden pews, tapestries, Bibles and kneeling cushions had all been incinerated in a fire that appeared to have raged until there was nothing left to burn.
Writing, ostensibly by the rebels, covered the church’s walls. The names of the rebel groups who participated in the attack appeared to be listed. The graveyard was little more than a field of smashed masonry, its headstones individually defaced.
The Telegraph cannot independently confirm that all of the damage was inflicted by the rebels.
Zavinar Sargdegian, a 58-year-old resident, said that she witnessed the churches being set alight.
“I was at home with my husband when they raided the house,” she said. “They broke down the front door. They pushed us on to the street. We were on our knees and they put a gun to our heads. From the road I saw the Angelic Church burning. Fire was coming out of the doors and windows.”…
Notta_allah_followa says
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t this type of behavior by Muslims what led to the crusades? Christendom under attack in the Holy Land and Christian armies responded from Europe to defend their coreligionists. Where are the Christian armies today while the Muslims are once again on the match? Oh yeah, cowed into submission by a western media who has conducted a very effective shame campaign over the last hundred years, thereby guaranteeing the death of Judeo-Christianity as a global force. Welcome to your new reality.
Charli Main says
EVERY single country of North Africa, the Near and Middle East were Christian, part of the Romano-Byzantium empire. The Muslims from Mecca are invaders of every single one of these countries. Syria fell to the Muslim invaders around 636AD and after the systematic extermination of the indigenous Christians there, became “Muslim Land”
Richie says
and I fear much of Europe will soon fall to Muslim invaders. How can we hope to win if people refuse to even name the enemy?
Angry says
Richie
“How can we hope to win if people refuse to even name the enemy?”
Destroy the people who refuse to name the enemy, for the sake of non-islamic humanity. Politically first (for democratic purposes), and if that fails, then violently!
It’s general election year for us in Britain, if Labour ‘get in’, then we’re doomed, so we may as well do the worst! We’ll have lost everything anyway!
Salah says
“Time for Obama to send them more weapons,…”
Obama KNOWS that these weapons will eventually end up ih the hands of the Islamic State. Obama is a liar and a traitor; on one hand he pretends he wants to defeat the IS, on the other, he is arming them to the teeth.
Why is that? because the Islamic State (i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood) are actually in charge of the White House.
The air strikes are nothing but a saving face strategy.
To my American friends: the most violent and powerful islamic international terrorist organization is ruling your country…through the Oval Office.
Ayatrollah says
How did these communities suvive this long?
Knight says
God bless Robert and others who tirelessly preservere to bring us the truth.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
During weeks of planning before the assault, rebel fighters…
Would it be too much to ask for an explanation of what are they rebelling against? Against Bashar? I’m sure he was all torn up about the mass desecration.
They’re rebelling against civilization, with the goal to replace it with Islam and its Sharia, a low form of modern society that amounts the transfer of consciousness from the cerebellum down to the medulla.
Angemon says
Ya think?
jay says
Ugh, these people are NOT our allies, the fact we armed them bothers me to no end. Did we learn NOTHING with this fighting by-proxy with an enemy slightly less enemy-ish during the 80s??
pumbar says
Doesn’t look like it.
Mirren10 says
In the first hours, all appeared to be going according to plan. Insurgents, including those from the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, posed for pictures showing them protecting churches and talking gently to local people.
” …. But immediately after the media spotlight fell away, residents of Kessab told the Telegraph that the desecration began.
They took photographs to show they were looking after the churches, and then set them alight,” said Father Miron Avedissian, priest of the Armenian Apostolic church that was largely destroyed. “It all still happened in the first day.”
Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda’ said, “We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.” Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, “The Tuqyah is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.
And **still* Christians, and the West in general, keep falling for it.
The *only* safe way forward is to admit that islam is our enemy, and is ar war with us. We must declare war likewise.
Mervyco says
Totally agree
Kepha says
We saw Shrillary Shroo yocking it up with Erdogan’s foreign minister, apparetnly buying into helping Turkey to its local dirty work–including, apparently, using “moderate Islamicist” proxies to complete the job it pulled back in 1915.. We have seen the O encouraging people like the Muslim Brotherhood. We see the MSM ignoring stories like this one and continuing to maintain the fiction that somewhere in the Syrian mess there’s a bunch of moderates who will bring something between a US Presidential system and the British Westminster model to the Islamic World despite the total absence of any evidence that this will be the case. On 09/11/12 we saw the Libyan Jihadis’ “gratitude” for our support in Benghazi, and should’ve sobered up. America can now say with Isaiah (3:12) “As for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” Indeed, we see Shrillary Shroo and people like her, once the “children” back in 1968, at the pinnacles of power, and demonstrating that they haven’t grown up.
Gabriel says
Please stop this fighting. God is good and we together can say this. This fight must stop and pointing fingers is not just. Can I not say one is bad without looking at myself first. This is a new day and God is upon our hearts so greatly that we feel we must fight. But we ARE brothers with the same God. So ask yourself please, Why? Truly? I can’t take it any more and my prayers go to those both Muslim and Christian that must die tonight for what! Do we want our children to be in such a world? Do we want people who DO want our children in such a world be in charge. Together we stand, not divided, but together we fall. I know and believe it is hard out there. In America we have gangs on the streets killing just as radicals are killing too. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know why I am even writing this. I was in prayer and felt this had to be said. I have both Muslim and Christian friends. God and peace be with us. Please stop, and pray.
Mervyco says
Gabriel do you not get it? These people have no intention of praying WITH you: they have every intention, however, of preying ON you. The West, especially the USA, arms these people so they can topple Assad, but there will not be democracy when and if they do. He will be replaced by militias that will be at each other’s throats as Group A is not Muslim enough for Group B and Group C is waiting in the wings to kill off the survivors, as neither is Muslim enough for them. In the mix are D,E, F and so on: all with differnet constructs on Sharia, none of them with any hint of Western style multiculturalism. .
Look at the True news about Muslims, not what is served up by ENews, BBC. CNN. The Guardian. New Youk Times etc and see that Muslims spit in our faces every day and tell us it is raining.
There has to be a fight between, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists etc on one side and Muslims on the other. Our blood is already being shed in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Sudan and many more countries where there are Muslims fighting to impose Sharia on their host nations. Unless the world stands up to this Ebola like religion the Great grandchildren of anyone who reads this will be called mohammed or fatima: fact!!
Chris says
Well in America. The churches do not cut peoples heads off to defend their religion. That is the difference between all religions and Muslim.
martinR says
Syria rebels. When insurgents stormed, insurgents, arsonists, perpetrators, rebels, insurgents, rebel occupation, Syrian rebels, non-sectarian protectors, rebel offensive, rebel allies, insurgents, rebel fighters
ect ect ect…………………..
=ISLAM
=ISLAMIC
=MUSLIM
=KORAN