April 18th, 2017.

Western Backed Insurgents Conduct Sectarian Massacre west of Aleppo. 

Death Toll is 126, including 68 children.

Suicide Car Bomber Targeted Shia Evacuees from Idlib.

After more than two years under siege in their hometowns of al Fuah and Kafriya, on April 15th, they got on the buses and began the journey to the relative safety and freedom of Government held Aleppo City.

Siege of al-Fu’ah and Kafriya

Only kilometres from their final destination the convoy of buses stopped in the insurgent held Rashideen district west of Aleppo.

Many disembarked and took the chance to stretch their legs. Many children on the buses took the opportunity to escape the cramped environment of the bus.

At some point a supposed Muslim, a fighter from one of the insurgent groups (other than ISIS who do not have any presence whatsoever to the west of Aleppo) detonated a van packed with an estimated tonne of explosives in close proximity to the buses causing the scene to become one of utter carnage and devastation.

Deadly Aleppo suicide attack kills 100 in evacuation operation | World news | The Guardian

Explosion rocks west Aleppo, residents of Fouaa and Kefrayya targeted (Photos, 18 +).

2017 Aleppo suicide car bombing

Heart-wrenching footage from overcrowded Aleppo hospital

The attack is among the most deadly terror bombings of the entire war and the worst since the massacres of last May that killed more than 130 when a large team of suicide bombers attacked the coastal cities of Jab’leh and Tartous, in that case the carnage was caused by at least seven separate human bombs.

May 2016 Jableh and Tartous bombings

Syria: Terrorist bombings in Tartous and Jableh constitute serious escalation by Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha – Syrian Arab News Agency

More than a dozen insurgents also died in the blast, which appears to have been directed by insurgent factions opposed to the Idlib/Damascus evacuation deal.

The deal remains in place but is only partially complete, an estimated 8000 people remain in al Fuah and Kafriya and Madaya and Zabadani are also only partially evacuated.

Syria resumes evacuation after terrorists kill 112

No party has claimed responsibility for the atrocity and it is likely that the specific offenders will never be identified. Suspicion has fallen upon an outfit named Fawlaq al Sham, who expressed vocal opposition to the evacuation deal. This group was vetted by the US government, labelled moderate and armed with high quality weapons such as the BGM71 TOW missiles.

The Moderate Rebels: A Growing List of Vetted Groups Fielding BGM-71 TOW Anti-Tank Guided Missiles | Hasan Mustafa

In truth the insurgency has taken on such a vicious and sectarian character that there was widespread dissatisfaction with the deal. Many fighters wanted to enter al Fuah and Kafriyah and kill everyone there on the basis that they are Muslims of the Shia variety. Almost any of the numerous insurgent groups operating in western Syria are therefore suspects in the massacre.

In addition to the mass killing, insurgents also kidnapped hundreds of the civilian evacuees, their fate is unknown at this time but if further false flag attacks are planned as the Russian President recently claimed, they may well wind up murdered and used as the victims in a new atrocity to be blamed on the Syrian government.

200 Syrian civilians kidnapped by Al-Qaeda faction amid evacuation deal

An Aberration.

The culture of hatred and devaluation of human life has grown and spread like a cancerous growth in the Middle East over the past several decades.

In the Middle East, the suicide bombings were initially a largely Shia innovation in Lebanon in response to the murderous Israeli invasion and occupation that commenced in 1982 and continued until the year 2000.

The first Sunni group to engage in these operations on a large-scale was the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas who adopted the tactic in 1993, and proceeded to thoroughly blacken the Palestinian cause and help to justify and obscure Israel’s criminal nature with a series of horrific massacres of Israeli civilians over the succeeding decade.

Following the criminal US/British/Australian invasion of Iraq in 2003 the tactic was embraced by Sunni insurgents and the number of such attacks skyrocketed.

Between 1982 and the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, Hezbollah conducted, by US academic Robert Papes count, fewer than 40 suicide attacks on Israeli occupation forces.

In Iraq and Syria the so-called Islamic State group frequently exceed that in a single month, for example the group claimed to have conducted 85 such attacks in January 2016, more than double what Hezbollah had done in 18 years fighting the Israelis.

LiveLeak.com – 85 Martyrdom Operations Carried out by Islamic State Fighters in Iraq and Syria during January 2016 [Infographic]

The blame cannot therefore be placed at the feet of any one group, however suicide is expressly forbidden in Islam so to claim that the suicide bomber is going to paradise or that there is any ground for suicide attacks in Islam is a fallacy, a lie.

Attacks on military targets are not obvious war crimes in the same way as the Rashideen bus massacre but they do violate the rules the Koran asks Muslims to live by and more importantly clearly run counter to the value on life the Koran demands.

“And do not kill yourselves, surely God is most Merciful to you.”

The whole “We are the soldiers of god and we are fond of death” narrative has been completely bankrupt, an outright aberration from day one and will always be so. If you are a real soldier of god, you value life and do not crave or fetishise death.

In fairness it should be noted that  from a military tactical point of view it makes sense for poorly armed militia groups to use human bombs when facing the onslaught of air and ground bombing that accompanies a conventional military offensive. It should also be pointed out that many non-Muslims have conducted suicide attacks, from socialists in Lebanon to the Tamil Tiger separatists in Sri Lanka, who were the most prolific suicide bombers in the world prior to the Iraq war and the emergence of al Qaeda in Iraq as documented by Robert Papes in his work on the topic “Dying to Win“.

Personally it always seemed terribly wrong to me for one person, almost always a more senior person in rank and age to suggest to a foot-soldier that he should conduct an operation where his death is an essential part of the operation.

Just because a tactic makes sense in a certain situation does not mean that it is the right thing to do. It is totally immoral and the foot soldiers are simply being manipulated in a cynical and wicked manner whatever group they represent.

None of that exonerates the Neocon Zionists (nor their “Humanitarian bomber” underlings) who have been the core group responsible for the destabilisation and destruction of the Middle East over the past decades. But there is no doubt that the imperial onslaught has created terrible distortions within the Arab and Muslim world that must be addressed along with the imperial onslaught and the parallel support from Western intelligence for extremists that was the root cause.

Conclusion.

It goes without saying that the massacre in al Rashideen did not merit a mention from the new-found ally of the jihadists in the White House.

All the supposed humanitarian concern supposedly created by the Khan Shaykhun false flag incident attack was completely absent when it came to this far larger massacre. The 68 dead children did not merit even a passing mention, let alone a salvo of cruise missiles from the President who makes no attempt to hide his cynicism and hypocrisy.

 US Rebels slaughter 100’s of Women and Children in Syria

68 children among 126 killed in Aleppo blast

The Shocking Massacre of Kafriya and al-Fu’ah

Civilians attacked: UN condemns bombing of evacuees, Western media acquit rebels