By Ryan Keller, Examiner – “Members of the Free Syrian Army reportedly attacked the Christian-dominated al-Duvair village in Reef on the outskirts of Homs on Monday, where they massacred its citizens, including women and children, before the Syrian Army interfered.

This reported attack comes shortly after intense fighting in the city of al-Qusseir over the weekend, in which Bashar Al-Assad’s forces inflicted heavy casualties on the rebels.


Assad’s forces launched an offensive in April in an effort to cut off supply lines to the rebels by taking the city and its surrounding areas from the rebel groups that had been entrenched there since last year. Two weeks ago, the Syrian forces reached the center of the city

While the sources describing Monday’s massacre are supportive of Assad, it’s possible that it occurred since the rebel groups fighting the Assad regime are composed mainly of members of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliated groups and have committed war crimes and atrocities in the past.

Jabhat al-Nusra, the branch of al-Qaeda that fought and killed American and allied troops in Iraq, have positioned themselves in Syria and control the rebel movement.

The U.S. and other Western governments that are backing the FSA have acknowledged the presence of jihadists but insist that they’re only a small part of the rebel movement. However, al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups have been at the front of the rebel movement since day one of the Syrian war that began two years ago. According to German intelligence, 95 percent of the rebels aren’t even Syrian.

Flashback: Horror In Syria: ‘Free Syrian Army’ Rebels Executing Soldiers Were Reportedly Executing Christians –
Reports from Syria indicate members of the Free Syrian Army have started executing Christians while claiming they’re shooting Syrian soldiers. A video of a Nov. 1 attack in which black-clad Syrian rebels reportedly killed 28 men has been posted on Youtube.com. An Agence France-Presse story on the attack identified the victims as Syrian soldiers. But Religious Freedom Coalition President William Murray said two of the victims were associated with his cooperating organization in Syria, which distributes aid. The victims were not soldiers, he said, but civilians from the same neighborhood, ‘so they were all probably Christians.’

Flashback: Syrian Rebels Pledge Their Allegiance To Al-Qaeda
The leader of the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group fighting in Syria, has pledged allegiance to the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said the group’s behaviour in Syria would not change as a result. Al-Nusra claims to have carried out many suicide bombings and guerrilla attacks against state targets… Debates among Western leaders over whether to arm Syria’s rebels have often raised the concern of weapons ending up in the hands of groups such as al-Nusra.

Flashback: Syria: Obama Moving Toward Sending Lethal Weapons To Rebels While ‘Nowhere In Rebel-Controlled Syria Is There A Secular Fighting Force To Speak Of’ –
In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce. Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government. Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.