Maroua Shavaf tells how on August 4, 2013 the militants captured the village of Cleaa – the place where he lived his whole life. “They killed children, women, old people. The terrorists stayed for about four days until the Syrian Arab army entered. They stole everything they could steal, destroyed our homes, we were deprived of everything. Everyone who lived here was one big family, so the grief that happened to everyone individually is a grief for everyone,” says Maroua.
The same fate befell the settlement of Cpharia. Local resident Fadi Sakur remembers that in September 2013, unknown people came to his settlement, and a few days later uninvited guests had weapons. The men living in the village created groups of people’s militia, but the numerical superiority of the terrorists allowed them to suppress resistance. In November, the radicals seized Cpharia, killed all rebels, took everything valuable, and then burned part of the village. Fortunately, the rampant terrorism did not last long, and by the end of the year government forces liberated the survivors.
Four years later, Fadi Sakur continues to live alone in his dilapidated house. In Cpharia and the nearest settlements terrorists destroyed all schools, so the wife and children are now in a different place and visit him only during the holidays. Let us note that the ruined houses, murders and robberies are only a part of the “glorious deeds” of the terrorists. Wherever extremists came for a long time, for many peaceful Syrians it became a joy to get an easy death.
To repulse the desire of the hostages to leave the captured cities, the terrorists regularly organized public executions, the process of murder in which one can compare only with the plot of the Hollywood thriller. Cutting off parts of the body, burning, mass shooting – that’s just an incomplete list used by Islamists to intimidate the population. Similar practice was applied in Palmira, Kafer-Khaya (Kefraya), Aleppo. In the last militants shot and burned buses, where were residents who tried to leave the city.
These atrocities were committed not only by ISIS and the Syrian “Al-Qaeda” – “Jabhat al Nusra”, but also by the groupings of the so-called “moderate opposition”.