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Al-Jazeera TV host Faysal Al-Qassem, a Syrian national, recently criticized the Syrian army for attacking civilian areas without respect for "the rules and moral norms of urban warfare." "Why don't the Syrians take a lesson from the Israeli army, which tries, as much as it can, to avoid bombing civilian areas in Lebanon and Palestine?" asked Al-Qassem rhetorically, in a statement broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV on December 17, 2013 and posted on the Internet.
Following are excerpts from the statement:
Faysal Qassem: Why doesn't the Syrian army take a lesson from the conduct of the French occupation army during the French Mandate in Syria? Didn't the French stop bombing the rebels when they fled to the mosques or centers of population, in order to protect the lives of civilians?
Why don't the Syrians take a lesson from the Israeli army, which tries, as much as it can, to avoid bombing civilian areas in Lebanon and Palestine? Doesn't Hizbullah take refuge in populated areas, knowing that the Israeli airforce would not bomb them?
Why doesn't the Syrian army respect the sanctity of mosques, schools, and civilian neighborhoods? Why does it bomb the areas of its own supporters when several militants go there? Have they not heard of the rules and moral norms of urban warfare? Didn't the Syrian army attack many civilian areas, even though there were no fighters there?
Conversely, why do the forces of the Syrian opposition occupy populated areas, whey they know full well that the regime would raze them to the ground? Isn't the Free Syrian Army responsible for the banishment of civilians and the destruction of their villages and cities, because it decided to fight within them? Don't civilians in some areas curse the day that the FSA arrived there?
Isn't it foolish of the FSA to take control of a city or a village, even though it does not have an airforce capable of protecting it? Why doesn't it wage war against the regime in military areas? Are there not over 16,000 military sites in Syria? Why do you choose civilian areas? Hasn't the war between the FSA and the regime's army turned into a systematic destruction of Syrian cities and villages? The FSA moves to another area, and so on and so forth.
If this hellish scenario continues, will it not spell an end to all Syrian cities and villages?
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