“Diaries of Homs” by Jonathan Littell
The journalist, Jonathan Littell, filled two notebooks on what he observed and witnessed during his short 3-week stay in Homs (Jan. 16-Feb. 2, 2011), a week before the regular Syrian army entered Baba Amru and the districts in the hands of the insurgents.
The Syrian Liberation Army (SLA) of the insurgents claim that 50% of its ammunition and weapons are captured from the regular army, mostly delivered by officers on their own volition in support of the revolution.
The other half is purchased on the black market, particularly in North Lebanon with predominant Sunni people allied with the Harri clan (the Mustakbal or Future movement).
And what were the prices in early 2011:
1. RPG: $2,500, including transport
2. Missile rocket for the RPG: $650 apiece
3. Kalashnikov (Russi): $1,800. The Chinese version is cheaper
4. A mortar 60 mm: $4,500
5. Shells for this mortar: $150 apiece
6. A mortar 80 mm: $7,500
Bullets 7.62 mm for machine guns were in Israeli boxes. Every round of 5 bullets is followed by a tracer.
Dochka (little soul in Russian) is a machine gun for 12.7 mm bullets and mounted on trucks…
More important. What are the various Islamic factions and movements involved in the uprising?
1. Takfiri, Jihadist, Wahhabi radical Moslems. Considered by the Syrian insurgents as “made in the USA”, financed and supported and dispatched by Saudi Arabia
2. Djamaat al Tabligh (disseminating the message and founded in India in 1926)
3. Tahrir al Akl (Freeing the mind): Is a traditional moderate Syrian-based Sunni sect
4. The Syrian Moslem Brotherhood movement: Currently with strong links with its Turkish counterpart in power. It was linked to the Egyptian movement during Sadat and was suppressed in blood in the city of Hama by late Hafez Assad in 1982.
The Syrian Moslem Brotherhood does not exist on the ground, but mainly abroad.
The insurgents in Homs were adamantly refusing any call for Jihad, on the ground that this decision will inevitably bring in all kinds of Islamic and Arabic foreign radical Moslems to join in the uprising.
The insurgents claimed that their resistance is not based on sectarian basis, though many Sunnis hated the Shia, as a generalization for hating the Islamic Republic of Iran…
The insurgents claimed that the regime’s militia (The Shabbiha) were mostly from the Alawi sect of the regime and who used to blackmail people before the uprising and steeling whatever they wished to own…
The Communists are concentrated in the Edlib district in the Djebel Zawiye region, and also in Salamiyeh between Homs and Hama.
Jonathan Littell was whisked to Homs from north Lebanon and through the town of Qusayr by many intervening links and side roads. The insurgents in Homs, particularly the SLA, were not hot about welcoming foreign journalists because they added extra stress on the fragile and nascent resistance.
Jonathan Littell paid particular attention to the three clinics he was lucky to visit and witness the kinds of wounds and civilian deaths, mostly resulting from sniper shots in the chest and the head.
Last week, two dozens of Lebanese were encouraged to go and join the Syrian insurgents. The Syrian army ambushed them in the town of “Tal Kalakh”. It is reported that all of them have been killed.
The Lebanese government position is Not to interfere or intervene in Syria’s problems, but there are many political parties and political leaders who are blatantly acting against State orders, and shipping men, arms and ammunition to the Syrian rebels…
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