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Syria rebels 'burned down churches and destroyed Christian graves'

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  • Syria rebels 'burned down churches and destroyed Christian graves'

    Dispatch: Syria rebels 'burned down churches and destroyed Christian graves'

    When insurgents stormed Kessab, they posted pictures of themselves
    protecting ancient churches. But a visit to the Syrian town tells a
    different story.

    A broken cross lies on a desecrated grave in Kessab's Armenian
    cemetery Photo: Ruth Sherlock/The Telegraph

    By Ruth Sherlock, Kessab
    2:09PM GMT 03 Jan 2015


    Rain seeped into the tombs through shattered flagstones. Nearby,
    marble crosses lay in pieces. Plastic flowers, once lovingly placed on
    a grave, were torn and stamped into the earth.

    Beside the desecrated graveyard in the Syrian town of Kessab stood the
    Holy Trinity Armenian Evangelical church. Its library, pews and altar
    had all been burned by arsonists.

    The perpetrators had shown both purpose and glee in their destruction
    of Christian sites in this ancient Armenian town. Statues were riddled
    with bullets and Islamist slogans were scrawled across the walls of
    homes and shops.

    Once a haven from Syria's civil war, nestled in the hills of Latakia
    province, Kessab gained international fame when it was captured by
    rebels last spring in a surprise offensive that forced the town's
    2,500 Armenian Christians to flee.

    Turkey was widely accused of helping the insurgents to capture Kessab,
    despite the participation in the attack of Jabhat al-Nusra, an
    affiliate of al-Qaeda.


    But the Syrian armed forces took back the town in June after it had
    endured three months of rebel occupation. The Telegraph travelled to
    the area on a facility trip with the Syrian regime to witness the
    aftermath of the battle.

    The desecration of Kessab's churches contradicts the claims of Syrian
    rebels that their fighters are non-sectarian protectors of Christian
    residents and heritage.

    The evidence also fails to support counter-claims by pro-government
    groups that Armenian Christians were "massacred" during the rebel
    offensive.

    When this assault began last year, Turkey's then prime minister, Recep
    Tayyip Erdogan, was facing a general election and his rebel allies in
    Syria were losing ground to regime forces. The offensive on Kessab was
    intended to bolster both the insurgents and their Turkish backers.

    During weeks of planning before the assault, rebel fighters were given
    strict orders to use the offensive to show themselves as "moderate
    Muslims" and natural allies of the West.

    Kessab is protected by a mountain range, acting as a natural fortress
    against invasion, and the Turkish border almost surrounds the town. It
    was only when Turkish troops allowed free movement across the frontier
    that the rebels were able to storm and capture Kessab.

    In the first hours, all appeared to be going according to plan.
    Insurgents, including those from the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham,
    posed for pictures showing them protecting churches and talking gently
    to local people.

    About 30 Armenians, who had been too elderly or frail to escape the
    offensive, were placed on minibuses and driven to Turkey, where they
    were given a warm reception that was covered in minute detail by state
    television.

    Ignoring the participation of Islamist extremists in the offensive -
    including a large number of foreign jihadists - Ahmed Jarba, the head
    of the Syrian National Coalition, travelled to Kessab and claimed a
    victory.

    But immediately after the media spotlight fell away, residents of
    Kessab told the Telegraph that the desecration began.

    "They took photographs to show they were looking after the churches,
    and then set them alight," said Father Miron Avedissian, priest of the
    Armenian Apostolic church that was largely destroyed. "It all still
    happened in the first day."

    If Western-backed rebels tried to stop the rampage by their extremist
    allies, there was little evidence of a struggle.

    Doors, walls and shopfronts on the town's narrow streets are covered
    in scrawled messages declaring "There is no God but Allah".

    The white paint is still fresh on the walls of Father Avedissian's
    church as he tries to repair the damage.

    Tufts of burned carpet on the staircase, and partly melted
    air-conditioning units on the walls, show the intensity of the fire
    that wrecked its interior.

    The priest flicked through photographs on his iPhone: one image showed
    himself inside the church, pointing to a vandalised painting of Jesus
    and the Virgin Mary. Outside, the crosses carved into the stone over
    the wide arch doors were riddled with bullet holes.

    Nearby, the Holy Trinity Armenian Evangelical church was little more
    than a burned shell. Walls were blackened by smoke; wooden pews,
    tapestries, Bibles and kneeling cushions had all been incinerated in a
    fire that appeared to have raged until there was nothing left to burn.

    Inside the Holy Trinity Armenian Evangelical after it was burned
    during the rebel offensive on Kessab last spring (Ruth Sherlock/The
    Telegraph)

    Writing, ostensibly by the rebels, covered the church's walls. The
    names of the rebel groups who participated in the attack appeared to
    be listed. The graveyard was little more than a field of smashed
    masonry, its headstones individually defaced.

    The Telegraph cannot independently confirm that all of the damage was
    inflicted by the rebels.

    Zavinar Sargdegian, a 58-year-old resident, said that she witnessed
    the churches being set alight.

    "I was at home with my husband when they raided the house," she said.
    "They broke down the front door. They pushed us on to the street. We
    were on our knees and they put a gun to our heads. From the road I saw
    the Angelic Church burning. Fire was coming out of the doors and
    windows."

    The rebels included men from Chechnya, Tunisia and Libya, she said.

    Other residents, who said they returned to their homes when Syrian
    forces recaptured the town, described finding the churches and the
    graveyard destroyed.

    Tweets dating from the days after the rebels stormed the town on 21
    March include pictures of jihadists destroying crosses in the
    churches.

    Soldiers patrolling in Kessab in front of one of the burned buildings
    (Ruth Sherlock/The Telegraph)

    Others show them setting fire to shops selling alcohol and smashing
    glass bottles in the streets.

    For the past two years, rebel-held areas of Latakia province have been
    the domain of some of the most hardline extremist groups.

    Christians have not been their only targets. In 2013, jihadists swept
    into several villages in Latakia inhabited by the Alawite minority.
    They murdered dozens of civilians and kidnapped hundreds of women and
    children, some of whom are still missing. Extremists from the Islamic
    State of Iraq and Levant (Isil) are believed to have joined these
    attacks.

    Across Syria, hardline Islamists have gained dominance over the rebel
    movement fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's regime.

    Joshua Landis, an expert on the conflict, estimates that non-Islamist
    rebels now control less than 5 per cent of Syria, with the rest of the
    country divided between the regime, Isil or Jabhat al-Nusra.

    Most of Kessab's people were able to escape before their town fell to
    the insurgents. There is no evidence of the "massacre" of civilians
    claimed by regime loyalists - at one point supposedly "proved" with
    images that were later identified as shots from a horror film.

    But the fall of the Armenian town summoned bitter memories of
    persecution. In 1909, tens of thousands of Armenians were killed
    during the Adana massacre under the Ottoman empire.

    Then in 1915, a further 5,000 residents of Kessab were killed by the
    Ottomans during what some historians consider the "genocide" of the
    Armenian minority.

    Today, Kessab is coming back to life, but the lives of those people
    who have returned to their homes seem far from secure. Turkish
    soldiers can be seen on hilltops near the town, manning the border
    checkpoints through which the rebels crossed to carry out the attack.

    The occasional explosion of tank shells served as a reminder that the
    civil war is still close by.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11323109/Dispatch-Syria-rebels-burned-down-churches-and-destroyed-Christian-graves.html

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