Quote:
Originally Posted by boardman
GWB is responsible for the turmoil in Syria?
Oh, right, it's Bush's fault...
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"Syria 1949, 5 August: 12 killed and dozens injured in the Menarsha synagogue attack, Damascus."
and the "beating" goes on ...
From 1976 to 1982, Sunni Islamists fought the Ba'ath Party-controlled government of Syria in what has been called "long campaign of terror".[2] Islamists attacked both civilians and off-duty military personnel.
The Muslim Brotherhood was blamed for the terror by the government, although the insurgents used names such as Kata'ib Muhammad (Phalanges of Muhammad, begun in Hama in 1965 Marwan Hadid) to refer to their organization.[3]
Following Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1976 a number of prominent Syrian officers and government servants, as well as "professional men, doctors, teachers," were assassinated. Most of the victims were Alawis, "which suggested that the assassins had targeted the community" but "no one could be sure who was behind" the killings.[4]
Among the better known victims were:
the commander of the Hama garrison, Colonel Ali Haydar, killed in October 1976
the rector of Damascus University, Dr. Muhammad al-Fadl, killed in February 1977
the commander of the missile corps, Brigadier 'Abd al Hamid Ruzzug, killed in June 1977
the doyen of Syrian dentists, Dr Ibrahim Na'ama, killed in March 1978
the director of police affairs at the Ministry of the Interior, Colonel Ahmad Khalil, killed in August 1978
Public Prosecutor 'Adil Mini of the Supreme State Security Court, killed in April 1979.
President Hafez Asad's own doctor, the neurologist Dr. Muhammad Shahada Khalil, who was killed in August 1979.[5]
These assassinations led up to the 16 June 1979 slaughter of cadets at the Aleppo Artillery School. On that day a member of school staff, Captain Ibrahim Yusuf, assembled the cadets in the dining-hall and then let in the gunmen who opened fire on the cadets. According to the official report 32 young men were killed. Unofficial sources say the "death toll was as high as 83."[6] This attack was the work of Tali'a muqatila, or Fighting Vanguard, a Sunni Islamist guerrilla group and spinoff of the Muslim Brotherhood. Adnan 'Uqla, who later became the group's leader, helped plan the massacre.[7]
The cadet massacre "marked the start of full-scale urban warfare" against Alawis, cadre of the ruling Ba'ath party, party offices, "police posts, military vehicles, barracks, factories and any other target the guerrillas could attack." In the city of Aleppo between 1979 and 1981 terrorists killed over 300 people, mainly Ba'thists and Alawis, but also a dozen Islamic clergy who had denounced the murders. Of these the most prominent was Shaykh Muhammad al-Shami, who was slain in his own mosque, the Sulaymaniya, on 2 February 1980.
On 26 June 1980, the president of Syria, Hafez al-Asad, "narrowly escaped death" when attackers threw two grenades and fired machine gun bursts at him as he waited at a diplomatic function in Damascus.[8]
On 17 June 1980, an estimated 1,152 Islamist inmates at the prison in Palmyra were massacred by the alawi-ruled government Defense companies troops. Less than a month later membership in the Muslim Brotherhood became punishable by death with a month grace period given for members to turn themselves in.
Individuals assassinated at this time include:
Salim Lawzi, publisher of al-Hawadith, in Lebanon killed by Syrian assassins in March 1980.
Riad Taha, head of the journalists' union in Beirut killed in July 1980.
Wife of guide of Muslim Brothers Isam al-'Attar, (Bayan al-Tantawi) killed in Aachen, Germany as she opened the front door to assassins in July 1980. (p. 329)
Salah al-Din al-Bitar, co-founder of the Ba'ath Party killed in Paris on 21 July 1980.
While the involvement of the Syrian government "was not proved" in these killings, it "was widely suspected."[9]
The insurgency is generally considered to have been crushed by the bloody Hama massacre of 1982, in which thousands were killed, "the vast majority innocent civilians".[10][11]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Syria#2000s
I think Bush II was trying to get in grade school .. and then later was Governor of the State of Texas after some business ventures.
That's why Little Boy should really stay on the bench. He's getting hysterical.
