Thursday, May 22, 2014

Death toll in Syria

This is from an opposition source: "Mr. Abdul Rahman claims to have contacts among government supporters and the security forces, and has provided rare estimates of the toll among pro-government forces: currently 61,170 Syrians, including 37,685 from the military and 23,485 from pro-government militias.

The Syrian Observatory also said that it had tallied 438 dead from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia fighting on the government side, which has not cited a figure for its own losses. And the group said that 1,224 non-Syrian, pro-government fighters had also died. Iraqi and other foreign fighters, most of them Shiite Muslims, have flocked to the government side, much as foreign Sunnis have joined the insurgents.

The group also said that 42,701 antigovernment fighters had been killed, including more than 13,500 from jihadist groups like the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, both of which are affiliated with Al Qaeda. It has also documented more than 2,000 deaths of people whose names and affiliations could not be determined."  In US media, these details are summarized as: Bashshar has killed 150,000 of his own people.  Notice that Mr. Abdul-Rahman rarely reports the murder of civilians by Syrian rebels.