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I've been trying to sum up the words to
write this post for over an hour now, and honestly...no
words can sum up what happened yesterday and all the events
that followed in Halba, Akkar.
On Friday night, mosques across Akkar,
called for demonstrations in Halba. At the time, I was with
a bunch of friends from different political parties
(pro-government and opposition). Everybody present knew
what was going to happen at that demonstration. They all
knew because it had happened before.
Almost a year ago, Future movement
called for a demonstration that soon turned into an attack
on the SSNP headquarters in Halba, the result was 5 FMers
(Hariri Militia ) injured and the attack was repelled.
( Huh, on that day, I was arrested for
several hours on suspicion that I was between the SSNPers
that fired machine guns, even though I wasn't even in the
same area at the time of the clash, a fact that the police
knew, since I WAS THEN all day long taking pictures of the
demonstrations and I even arrived with them to the scene).
Well, what everybody speculated
happened. The demonstration was suppose to take place at 10
AM, people from my area told me that they were going to
torch down the HQ. Soon, news arrived that the
demonstration was postponed till 11, and at around 10:30,
clashes began.
To put things into perspective, I'm
pro-opposition in the middle of a pro-government area. Even
though most of them are friends and family, paranoia hit me
when I learned that people very close to me where taking
part in the clashes and even leading the attack. That meant
one thing, we were next.
Automatically that SSNP HQ, became our
last line of defense. I know this might seem strange, but
that's exactly how we felt. All roads coming from the south
(Tripoli) was cut by the army and pro-SSNP members sat-up a
blockade and captured over 50 fully armed FMrs , coming from
Brkayel and Bibnin, sent by none-other than the Mufty
(highest Muslim cleric in akkar) himself. The FMers (Hariri
Militia ) were stripped from their guns and sent back.
Somebody told us that reinforcement were coming from
koura (SSNP stronghold), but it was stopped by the army.
Negotiations began to put an end to the
fighting, and the attackers demanded that the SSNP evacuates
the HQ and hands it over to them. SSNP fighters rejected the
offer, and the fighting continued as both sides used machine
guns, B-7s, stingers (WHERE THE F… DID THEY GET THAT????)
and mortars (the home of a journalist I knew was hit with
two successive mortar shells with his kids inside the house,
we caught with him later). At 4:30 PM, SSNP fighters ran out
of ammo as FMers (Hariri Militia) moved in and threw a
burning Truck tyre into the HQ. At this point, a shaikh
intervened and asked the SSNP fighter to hand over the
office to the army, the fighters agreed after the sheikh
guaranteed their security. Army soldiers took over the
office and we all thought that this was it. It wasn't. FMers
(Hariri Militia) stormed the office and as the army watched,
lined up the SSNP fighters on a wall and executed them at
point blank range. They executed the fighters after they
surrendered. That wasn't all, FMrs brought axes and started
hammering down at bodies, cutting every limb. All of this
happened while the army was watching.
At around 5:00 PM, the door bell rings.
Its a distant relative of mine (who's an FMer btw), he came
to tell us that he was just in halba and witnessed the
atrocities that was being committed. He came to urge us to
leave the country immediately because they were coming to us
next. We stayed a while trying to figure out, witch road to
take, as news came that FMers ( Hariri Militia ) are setting
checkpoints everywhere, asking for IDs and checking the
trunks. We decided on a road and quickly headed towards the
borders. I'm writing this now, from a net cafe in Syria.
The massacre did not end at the SSNP
HQ, FMers ( Hariri Militia ) are attacking the houses of all
the known pro-opposition people in Akkar, 2 people died in
Tikrit yesterday and they also killed three injured fighters
(from the HQ clash) inside hospitals, one of them was taken
from the hospital, locked inside a car and the car was
torched down with him burning inside.
I have a list of all the dead and
injured that i will post later on. Mistakes were made from
both sides, but nothing at all justifies any of this.
Here's a list of all the people that
were executed and killed inside the SSNP HQ in Halba:
Fadi Al-Sheikh - executed
Ahmad Naaous - died in the clash
Zafer Hmouda - executed
Mikhayel Slayman - Injured in the
clash, executed on site by smashing a rock on his head
Ahmad Khaled - executed
Mahmoud Darwish - executed
Shakir Diab - executed
Mohamad Ghanem - executed
Nasser Hmouda - Injured in the clash,
executed by locking him in a car and burning it
Mohamad Al Sheish - executed
Mahmoud Al Turk - executed
Zafer Abu Jeij - executed
List of the Injured:
Adnan Hmouda
Haissam Hmouda
Imad Shidrawi
Tawfik Fiad
Imad Moussa
Eiied Wrak
Walid Batikh
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