The details of the recent massacres in the Syrian district of Houla and the farming hamlet of Mazraat al-Qubeir were bloodcurdling:children shot at point-blank, throats slit, skulls crushed, entirefamilies gunned down in their homes, the stench of charred humanflesh, the paucity of survivors. The dead have been buried, but thequestion remains: Who could do this? Who could commit what UnitedNations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon described as"unspeakable barbarity?" "Not even amonster," insisted Syria ‘s President Bashar al-Assad. But what about a shabih ? The Shabiha –the plural of the word shabih –along with uniformed elements of the security forces, wereblamed by many observers and witnesses for both massacres (someregime sources, however, say that rebels had a hand in thekillings). In an increasingly bloody 15-month crisis the Shabiha have become increasingly prominent as irregular paramilitarytroops, regime enforcers, the go-to guys when the going gets toughand bloody. Their origins go back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Bashar Assad ‘s father and uncles ran the country. Bashar's father Hafez Assad was president, his brother Rifaat had a pivotal role in the security forces while his other brotherJamil was setting up and consolidating his shadowy businessdealings, which allegedly included drug trafficking and weapons smuggling, according to Radwan Ziadeh, a longtimemember of the Syrian opposition. The gangs, initially drawn fromthe Assads' own extended family and from their Alawite sect,were described as mafia enforcers. "They made their livingfrom smuggling (electrical goods, tobacco, drugs, alcohol,antiquities, etc.) and imposing ‘taxes'(extortion)," Syrian writer Yassin al-Haj Salih said in arecent report published in Germany. "They were noted fortheir brutality and cruelty and their blind devotion to theirleaders." At a time when Ziadeh says many Syrians could not afford new cars,the gangs rode around in flashy Mercedes 600s, a model Syriansnicknamed the shabah. The men driving them became the shabiha, some say in part becauseof the car's nickname, but also because they would engage in tashbih , thuggish acts of blatant disrespect toward others. (The term shabiha does not mean ghosts, as some have translated, although the rootof the word shabah means ghost. The plural "ghosts" is ashbah .) They were gangsters and they did not discriminate when looking forvictims. Alawites figured among the oppressed, despite religiousties to the Assad regime. In the early months of the currentuprising, back when it was predominantly peaceful, busloads ofshabiha–some wearing items of military clothing, many dressedin black, and most carrying some sort of a weapon like a stick ormetal pipe–were a common sight around mosques and otherpotential gathering places. They have been a useful for a regimethat rules by fear, but they have evolved — or devolved— into something else in the 15 months since Syrians firsttook to the streets. Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma whoedits the prominent blog Syria Comment, says that the power andinfluence of the Shabiha has expanded during this time."These shabiha who used to be in the shadows and looked downon by everybody else as garbage, are now at the top, and they are,of course, connected to the security services and they're allworking it from the inside," he says. "The regime isincreasingly being taken over by the Shabiha. They're theones who are willing to do the hard work, which is killing Syrians,and no one can say boo to them anymore." Ziadeh disagrees with Landis that the Shabiha are "runningthe show." Yes, he says, they have become more violent,more undisciplined, but "they are under the full control andcoordination with the security and the army, and the proof is theHoula and Qubeir massacres," he says. (The shabiha are widelyblamed for the ugliest of the violence, the house-to-house raids,following heavy shelling by the military.) Still, Ziadeh and Landis agree on one thing: the regime'sstrategy seems to be to focus the multi-sectarian military, whoselower ranks are packed with Sunnis, on killing from a relativedistance, while the largely (but not solely) Alawite Shabiha aredoing the killing up-close. It's a cold calculation, intendedto stem further defections from the lower, largely Sunni levels ofthe armed forces, while also stoking sectarian hatred and revenge, and trying to tie the broader Alawitecommunity's fate with that of the regime. But the factis, not all Alawites are Assadists, and not all Assadists areAlawites. Will the distinction fade as the conflict becomesbloodier, as shabiha continue their rampage and sectairanism iswielded like a weapon? The questions about this conflict —including where it's headed, who supports whom, and who could hunt and kill a child cowering inits home — are simple enough. The answers are anything but. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Accessory Belt Tensioner , Upper Lower Ball Joint, and more. For more , please visit Upper Lower Ball Joint today!
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