Friday, June 7, 2013

When the Syrian Army Arrived, Only Two Christians Remained in al-Qusayr

From today's an-Nahar, here.



Only Two of al-Qusayr's Christians Remain

Only two of al-Qusayr's Christians remain from an original population of 20,000 residing there prior to the outbreak of events, alongside 40,000 Sunnis. This was before the outbreak of events and the take-over of the city by the opposition a year ago, at which point the majority of Christians fled, fearing instability and the beginnings of Islamic fundamentalist movements that were starting to show signs in al-Qusayr and imposing themselves on Leftist, secularist groups in the opposition.

Thus, when the Syrian Army and Hezbollah fighters entered the city yesterday, there were no Christians left in al-Qusayr aside from Talal Haddad and his uncle, Ajjaj Haddad, along with their secularist Sunni Muslim neighbor, Abdelkarim Zuhouri, who prefered remaining with his only two neighbors to leaving al-Qusayr with the refugees.  Talal had been fired upon by armed men from Jabhat al-Nusra a while ago and was shot in the foot in order to terrorize him and force him to flee the city with his family, but the secularly-inclined Talal preferred to remain and defend the family home, with the help of the remaining Leftist members of the opposition.

3 comments:

The Anti-Gnostic said...

The last three Ba'athists in the Middle East...

Samn! said...

The Syrian army is still over half secularist Sunni. These guys were probably sympathetic to the anti-Baath breakaways from either the (generally pro-Baath) Syrian Social Nationalists or Communists.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Baathism is deader than the USSR Samn. Most Middle Easterners realize socialism just means subsidized babymaking for the Muslim Brotherhood.