The Daily Telegraph reports: A human rights group monitoring events in Syria claims it had evidence of the worst massacre yet by the regime of President Bashir al-Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has chronicled deaths on both sides during the nine month-long uprising, said a witness had seen the bodies of 34 people dumped in a public square in the restive city of Homs.
It said the 34 had all been seized from anti-Assad neighbourhoods in the city by the shabiha – unofficial militias loyal to and armed by the regime.
The bodies had been left in the pro-regime district of Al-Zahra, it said.
More than 4,000 people have been killed in the uprising, with an increasing number of regime soldiers being killed by armed insurgents as the country drifts towards civil war.
The only reason the bodies wouldn’t be “disappeared” completely is “to send a message” topeople close to the people who were killed. Since it is unlikely that the Syrian government would need “to send a message” to its own supporter, it seems to me that it is unlikely that they would kill political opponents and their bodies in a loyalist area. It is far more likely that the opposition killed them and dumped them in a pro-government area to either incriminate the government or to send a message to the government supporters.