At the beginning of
January 1976
In Damour and Jieh, two Christian towns south of Beirut,
the Palestinians and Syrians went so far as to cut the
fingers of Christian children to ensure that they never
would be able to pull a gun's trigger. In Damour, at least
300 inhabitants were killed and their churches profaned.
May 31, 1976
The Syrians invaded Lebanon and established their rule.
The invaders pillaged the towns and villages they went
through and humiliated the Lebanese population. The
Syrians shelled all the regions under Muslim domination.
There must have been over 500 victims, mostly civilians.
March 16, 1977
the Syrians murdered Mr. Kamal Joumblatt, they sent
Druze to attack Christian villages. The result: At least
1000 people were massacred. The village of Deir Dourit
was erased, with 273 dead.
February 7, 1978
hostilities started between the Lebanese Army and the
Arab Force of Dissuasion, the FAD, with its Syrian majority
and under the command of the Lebanese lieutenant Sami
Khatib, as a result of the installation of a Syrian
barrage near the Fayadieh Barracks, the seat of the
Lebanese military commander of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian
soldiers insisted on controlling all Lebanese military
vehicles entering the Fayadieh Barracks. They shelled
the residential quarters with Stalin Organs and opened
fire on the barracks with MBT guns.
Mention must be made that as of that period, Sami Khatib
is one of the best Syrian agents in Lebanon. He is responsible
for the incarceration of thousands of Lebanese and the
disappearance of hundreds of others following their
torture.
June 27, 1978
Elements from the "special Syrian forces" dragged out
of their beds 30 young men from the villages of Kaa
and Ras_Baalbeck and executed them without any form
of trial. The man who headed and completed this job
was none other than the Syrian officer Ali Dib.
July 1, 1978
The civilian population of East Beirut and its suburbs
were shelled by Syrian artillery and started with the
residential quarters of East Beirut. The private militia
of Rifaat Assad, brother of the Syrian President, circled
the free regions around Beirut. The shelling lasted
five days and five nights. Heavy caliber shells were
used, from heavy cannon to Kaytusha rockets and including
all kinds of mortars (up to 240 mm), rockets and missiles.
According to some obbservers, all sorts of weapon were
used, except for aerial bombing. Sixty civilians were
killed and over 300 injured.
Beginning 1979
The Syrians bombed East Beirut and the adjoining Christian
regions. 82, 120 and 160 mm shells fell on the targeted
sectors.
August 1979
The Syrians shell the villages of Niha, Deir Bella and
Douma in North Lebanon.
February 24, 1980
Mr. Selim Laouzi, owner and director of the al Hawadess
revue, was kidnapped by the Syrians on the road to the
Beirut airport. The mutilated and decomposed body of
the journalist was found in the Aramoun forest ten days
after his abduction. He was shot twice in the head after
having been tortured horribly: the ribs on his right
side had been crushed by repeated blows with a bar and
his right arm was lacerated to the bone, from his armpit
to his elbow.
July 23, 1980
Riad Taha, president of the press, was killed at Chourane
(Raouchþ) by the Syrians. His car had been sprayed with
bullets. Taha was hit by seven bullets in his face,
the back of his head and his breast. September 4, 1981,
Louis Delamarre, the French Ambassador to Lebanon was
murdered by the Syrians in West Beirut. France remained
indifferent to this murder.
March 1981
The towns of Zahlþ in the Bekaa and East Beirut were
shelled. In Lebanon, even the Red Cross was a target
for the Syrians. Sister [Nun] Marie Sophie Zoghbi was
one of the Red Cross ambulance drivers since the beginning
of the war. She had forced her way through the front
to the south of the town of Zahlþ on the Saadnayel road.
Alone at the wheel of her ambulance, she'd gone to fetch
the dying in Zahlþ. The Syrians shot the vehicle, killing
her on the spot. The town's hospital was eradicated
by thousands of shells which fell on it during one night.
Water, food, and medicines grew rarer and the corpses
of some of the wounded who'd died under the shelters
couldn't be evacuated. In all, the fighting had left
some two hundred dead and five hundred wounded in Beirut
alone. The Palestinians, too, had participated actively
in the Zahlþ shelling. The Palestinian military commander
was Ahmad Ismail.
February 1982
In the Syrian city of Hama, an insurrection by the Moslem
Brothers was suppressed with rare brutality in modern
history. The Alawite army isolated the city, cutting
off any contact with the outside, and opened a ground
and aerial bombing. According to Amnesty International,
the Syrian military had placed rubber pipes at the entrance
of buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding
and pumped in poison gas. It is claimed that there were
some 30,000 dead in Hama. The Alawite army attacked
the entire population, both Christians and Moslems.
April 3, 1982
The murder of Yacov Barsimentov, third secretary at
the Israeli Embassy in Paris. The murder was claimed
by the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Fractions (FARL),
a small terrorist group created and manipulated by the
Syrians.
April 22, 1982
A booby trapped car exploded Rue Marbeuf in Paris. Two
Syrian diplomats were expelled, and the French Ambassador
recalled for consultation.
May 24, 1982
A Syrian attack against the French Embassy in Lebanon.
At eight AM on a Monday morning, Anna Comidis, secretary
at the commercial service of the French Embassy in Beirut
entered the gate of the compound at the wheel of her
Renault R12. The car exploded at that very moment. Anna
Comidis' body was shredded to pieces. Ten additional
people were killed and over twenty were injured. The
explosion, estimated as some fifty kilograms of inflammable
fuel, was operated from a distance at the moment the
car was entering the grounds of the embassy.
September 14, 1982
Syria murders the Lebanese elected president, Bechir
Gemayel. The Syrians used Habib Chartouni as an assassin.
The murder was perpetrated at the military HQ of the
Phalangists in Achrafieh. Habib Chartouni had belonged
to the pro-Syrian party the PSNS, since 1977, and was
recruited by Assaad Hardane, head of the pro-Syrian
party in Lebanon. Elie Hobeika, head of the Phalangist
security had recruited Habib Chartouni. Hobeika acted
in accordance with the Syrians. Ali Douba, chief of
the Syrian intelligence services supplied Chartouni
with the explosives. Chartouni received half a million
Lebanese pounds (700,000 FF at the time). Twenty six
people were killed in addition to Bechir Gemayel in
that explosion. The Syrian consider Chartouni a hero,
and they liberated him in October 1990 when they invaded
the two Metn. Elias Hraoui, second post Taif president,
announced ironically, following the liberation of Chartouni,
that inquiry would be opened to find Gemayel's murderers.
December 1982
The Syrians destroy the town of Tripoli in Northern
Lebanon. The fighting between the Sunnites of Tripoli
and the Syrians started at the beginning of December.
The Baal Mohsen quarter was held by the Syrians and
their allies while the Bab Tebbanne quarter was controlled
by the anti-Syrian Lebanese militia. The Syrians formed
a militia loyal to them, the Arab Democratic Party,
whose general secretary was Nassib Khatib, though directed
by the Alawite Ali Eid. The fighting lasted three years.
Tripoli had become a second Beirut.
September 1983
Over 110 villages or Christian quarters in the Chouf
were ethnically cleansed of their Christian inhabitants:
Throats were slit, bodies hacked apart with axes, many
were burned alive over fire red, iron bars. Syrian soldiers
and members of the Druze community of Lebanon took part
in these massacres. Likewise, on November 8, 1982, Israeli
Druze officers allowed the Lebanese Druze to massacre
the Christian population in certain villages such as
Kfarnabrakh, at the foot of the cedars of Mount Barouk.
Walid Joumblatt, the leader of the Lebanese Druze, gave
the order to massacre the Chouf Christians.
September 1983
a commando of Khomeinist Iranians emerged from its Baalbeck
hideout, arrived at Rayak in the Bekaa, and after praying
at the mosque exploded a residential building inhabited
by Christians, leaving behind dead and wounded. The
Syrians present on the premises prevented the Lebanese
Civil Defense from removing debris burying two screaming
survivors.
Assayed Ahmad Al Fihri, appointed by Khomeiny to head
the Hezbollah in the Middle East, is responsible for
this massacre at Rayak. The Iranian ambassador in Syria,
Ali Akbar Montachami, and the military attachþ, Colonel
Haromi Zadem, had been placed at Al Fihri's service.
October 23, 1983
250 American soldiers and 70 French soldiers were killed
at their HQs in West Beirut. Lebanese and Iranian Islamists
supported by Syrian logistics headed the operation.
According to certain military sources, both buildings
had been packed full of dynamite, which explains the
high number of casualties. France and the USA remained
indifferent to these massacres. In the wake of this,
the soldiers of both countries were repatriated because
Beirut had turned into a dangerous city, even for the
mightiest fighters of all times.
1983-1984
the Syrians shelled and lay siege to the city of Tripoli
in Northern Lebanon. The overt objective was to evict
the PLO Palestinians. The Syrian army had mobilized
militants from Tripoli to take part in that job. According
to the evidence of former Lebanese militiamen who participated
in the battle on Tripoli on the side of the Syrians,
the latter shelled residential zones inhabited by Lebanese
civilians and where no Palestinians ever dwelled. The
Lebanese militiamen who refused to take part in the
destruction of their city were systematically arrested,
tortured, and then executed.
February 1984
Occupation of West Beirut by Amal, the pro-Syrian Shi'ite
militia. On February 6, 1984, Amal supported by Syrian
troupes, attacked the Lebanese army stationed in West
Beirut. The fighting left at least one hundred dead
and over 400 injured. Nabih Berri, Head of Amal, and
Ghazi Kanaan, commander of the Syrian forces in Lebanon,
are responsible for this slaughter.
March 1985
Exodus of tens of thousands of Christians from Iklim
El_Kharroub and the eastern part of Saida. The Palestinians
and Lebanese Druze laid siege to, pillaged and burned
over twenty Christian villages. Walid Joumblatt, Yasser
Arafat and Syrian officers, planned these massacres.
January 1986
Cancellation of the tri_partite agreement by a war between
Amine Gemayel's phalangists and Samir Geagea's Lebanese
Forces which opposed the agreement on the one hand,
and Elie Hobeika's partisans on the other hand. Hobeika
found refuge among his Syrian friends.
Following the failure of the tri-partite agreement,
car bombs started to appear in Beirut and its eastern
suburb:
- On Tuesday, March 21, 1986, 11 hours 35, a car bomb
exploded in Furn_El_Chebback (East Beirut), leaving
30 dead and at least 132 injured.
- On May 20, 1986, the French Prime Minister Chirac
announced that he was in favor of strengthening ties
between France and Syria. He added that a solution for
Lebanon could only be found together with Syria.
- On May 21, 1986, a car bomb exploded in the Christian
sector, leaving 7 dead and over 100 injured.
- On July 29, 1986, a Mercedes exploded on the Wadih
Nahim Street in Ein el Remmaneh, a Beirut suburb, with
31 dead and 128 injured.
- On July 30, 1986, a booby trapped Mercedes exploded
in Barbir, West Beirut. The result: 22 dead and 163
- injured. Syria and Elie Hobeika instigated these terrorist
cases.
September 17, 1986
an explosion took place in the Rue de Rennes in Paris,
in front of the doors of the Tati store. Three women
and two men were killed, and over 52 were injured.
The French Secret Services accused Colonel Ghazi Kanaan
of acting as the terrorist chief. Colonel Kanaan manipulated
the killers within a framework of operations determined
jointly by Iran and Lybbia under the aegis of Damascus.
The operation having concluded successfully, Colonel
Kanaan was promoted to the rank of General.
September 1986
Colonel Christian Gouttiþre, French military attachþ
in Lebanon was killed near the French embassy in Mar
Takla, in the region of East Beirut. In Damascus, far
more rapidly than was their custom, the Syrians hastened
to condemn the murder of the French military attachþ.
1987
The provocation of the Druze-Shi'ite inter-faith war
and the occupation of West Beirut. Since the beginning
of 1987, the tension between Joumblatt and Berri was
reaching its apex. For over a year, the two rival militias
shared everything in West Beirut, thefts, racketeering
and crimes. This tension culminated in the most violent
fighting ever seen in West Beirut. These fights, well
orchestrated by the Syrians, lasted for a long time,
with neither of the two militias managing to gain the
upper hand. The Syrians entered West Beirut in February
1987. The Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss and other
political and Moslem religious leaders approved the
Syrian decision, preferring an Arab army to the Lebanese
Army. Hafez el Assad later got rid of the Sunnite Mufti
Hassan Khaled on the day the Mufti requested the Syrians
to leave Lebanon. The Syrian secret services placed
200 kgs of explosives under his car.
On May 8, 1988
An inter-Shi'ite war is provoked between Amal and Hezbollah.
The fighting lasted three weeks, in the course of which
the Amal militia, financed and manipulated by Damascus,
collapsed before the rival militia. This war enabled
the Syrians to deploy their forces in the southern Shi'ite
suburb of Beirut, having done so a year before in the
western suburb.
March 1989
The Syrians shell the eastern regions of Beirut. At
the end of February 1989, the Lebanese Prime Minister,
General Michel Aoun, decides to close all the illegal
ports in Lebanon that allow for drug traffic. The Syrian
response was rapid: A shelling of the regions controlled
by the Lebanese army, with an average of 6000 shells
per day. The Syrian forces used for this fight totaled
about 20,000 men who were under the command of Generals
Gazi Kanaan and Ali Hammoud.
The Syrians killed the Spanish ambassador to Lebanon.
In their wild shelling of the Lebanese population, the
Syrian hit the residence of Mr. Pedro Manuel de Aristegui,
Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon. A shell exploded and
destroyed the building where the diplomat's residence
was located, killing the ambassador, his father-in-law,
his sister-in-law, and the Lebanese writer Toufic Youssef
Aouad. Despite the confirmation that the 240 mm shell
had come from the Syrian lines, the official circles
in Madrid refused to accuse the Syrians.
November 22, 1989
It was 13 hours 50 in Beirut, when the armored Mercedes
of Renþ Moawad, accompanied by Syrian soldiers was blown
into pieces. Two hundred kilos of TNT had exploded under
his car. In addition to Moawad, 17 Syrian soldiers perished
as well. It is to be noted that Renþ Moawad's wife never
submitted any complaint against the Syrians. Worse still,
she continues to this day to collaborate with the Syrians,
her husband's murderers.
October 13, 1990
in Beirut, the Syrian Air Force begins to bomb the free
regions. The bombing lasted until 14.00 hours, five
hours after the surrender of the Lebanese Prime Minister.
October 13, 1990
The Syrians liquidated the Sayah family in the village
of Bsous.
Coletter Sayah, aged 18, awoke one morning to the noise
of Syrian airplanes. The Sayah family hastened to take
shelter in a ground floor room. Shortly before 8 AM,
Colette heard the first bursts of an automatic and the
rumble of tanks in the village streets. Outside, men
were shouting: "Out! Out! You dogs, you!" One by one,
the members of the Sayah family left their shelter.
In the street, in the house, there were many tens of
Syrian soldiers. They took away Colette, her mother
and her aunts into an adjoining building under construction.
They'd barely arrived there when they heard a series
of shots.
The Syrians had just killed all the men of the family.
The father and a cousin with a bullet in their heads,
one of the brothers was shot through his heart. Another
brother was still breathing. Colette asked them to call
an ambulance, but the Syrians preferred that the boy
die. He will die in his sister's arms. Emile and Joseph,
the two uncles, were executed in a staircase. The corpses
will lie in the middle of the road until evening, surrounded
by a humming cloud of flies and bees.
The Hraoui government announced that there had been
no massacres.
The massacre of Dahr al Wahch.
The people of the village of Dahr al_Wahch saw Syrian
soldiers push a column of Lebanese prisoners who were
walking in their shorts towards some unknown destination.
A nun, a nurse at the governmental hospital of Baabda,
saw the arrival of corpses and of the Red Cross ambulances.
"I counted between 75 and 80, she explained. Most of
them had a bullet in the back of their heads or in their
mouth. The corpses still carried the mark of cords around
their wrists." The rigidity of the corpses fixed their
crossed arms behind their backs. They were naked, wearing
only shorts. Some ten of them had their eyes gouged
out, another ten had an arm or leg cut off. All had
been shot in their heads. There can be no doubt about
their execution.
The Hraoui government announced that there had been
no massacres.
Torture "made in Syria"
All the world organizations that struggle to defend the
Rights of Man have published documents about torture in
Syria. The following is a document published in Geneva
in May 1984 by the "Swiss Association for the Defense
of the Liberties of Political Prisoners in Syria." This
document, entitled "The Rights of Man in Syria" refers
to the treatments reserved for political prisoners held
by the Damascus secret services.
- The prisoner is stripped naked.
- His whole body is shaved.
- Cigarette butts are extinguished over the more sensitive
places of his body
- They burn his scalp.
- They pull out his nails.
- They tie his genitals with a nylon thread that they
secure to a nail on the wall after transfixing the
prisoner to a ring fixed on the opposite wall. Then,
one of the tormentors strikes the taut nylon thread
repeatedly with a stick.
- They flog the soles of a prisoner's feet with lashes
of a whip, a cane, or a plastic pipe, a minimum of
two hundred lashes a time.
- Then, stretch out the prisoner inside a container
of cold water.
- They invert the prisoner into a car's tireês rim
and then strike him all over (the process: they insert
a leg into the middle of the tire, followed by the
head and the arms in such a manner that the prisoner
is bent over and immobilized in the form of a U inside
the tire's circle).
- They hang the prisoner by his feet with his head
down.
- They force the prisoner to remain standing during
several days while preventing him from sitting down
or falling asleep by ordering him to raise his arms
fully stretched and very straight.
- They force the prisoner to stand for long periods
of time on one foot, administering blows each time
he lowers his raised foot.
- They force the prisoners to run while carrying heavy
loads and sustaining blows until utterly exhausted
or in a faint.
- Pour all of a sudden boiling water over the prisoners.
- They force the prisoner to sit on a stake.
- They force the prisoner to sit on the neck of a
bottle.
- They subject the prisoner to electric shock by using
an alternative electric current and tying the wires
to the more sensitive parts of the body, especially
to the genitals.
- They force pump water or air into the prisoner.
- They force sexual intercourse with the prisoner.
- They tear out chunks of the prisoner's flesh from
various parts of his body with the help of pliers.
- They rope the prisoner to a car and drive it full
speed until death occurs or till the victims' bodies
are torn apart and then the victimês bodies are desecrated
by gouging an eye or cutting an ear, the tongue, the
fingers and in some cases the genitals, and by sticking
them into the victim's mouth.
- They force the prisoner to run around a large room
surrounded by torturers who strike him with diverse
instruments of torture
.
- Force the prisoner to drink his own urine.
- They throw the prisoner into a basin of electrified
water.
- They tie the prisoner's genitals to prevent him
from urinating after forcing him to drink diuretic
liquids.
Taken from
lebaneseforces.org