Foreign Ministry: Al-Zara massacre aimed at foiling efforts to stop bloodshed

Damascus, SANA – The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry sent on Saturday two identical letters to the UN Secretary General and Head of the Security Council demanding condemnation of the terrorist massacre committed in al-Zara village in southern Hama.

After infiltrating the village at dawn on Thursday while its people were sleeping, terrorist groups raided homes and killed children, women and elderly in a brutal manner and abducted a number of others in a new horrific bloody massacre.

The Ministry’s letters said the massacre was perpetrated by Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement terrorist organizations and other factions allied with them, which some Western and other countries still insist on classifying them as “moderate armed groups”.

The Ministry noted that before the massacre happened, the terrorists had shelled the village using mortars, rockets and homemade (Hell) cannons, leaving many civilian casualties and causing huge damage to houses and public and private properties.

It also referred to the terrorists’ execution of a number of civilians at a bridge in al-Rastan area, while scores were injured in attacks.

The Ministry named some terrorist groups like Al-Rahman Legion, Ahl al-Sunna Battalions and Ajnad Homs that, along with Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, claimed responsibility for the massacre on their social media pages, which they said was perpetrated as planned and coordinated in advance.

Committing this “appalling massacre goes in line with the series of the systematic terrorist attacks targeting many Syrian cities that are being carried out under direct orders from the regimes of extremism in Riyadh, Ankara and Doha,” the Ministry’s letters said.

These attacks, the letters clarified, are aimed at foiling the efforts seeking to stop the Syrian bloodshed through derailing Geneva talks and thwarting the truce arrangements and the cessation of hostilities in the country.

They pointed out that this new massacre came at a time when the Security Council representatives of the US, France, Britain and Ukraine have declined to place Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham on the Council’s list of terrorist groups.

This, the letters said, proves that these countries are encouraging criminal acts committed by these terrorist groups and insisting on turning blind eyes to them and shows that they are not serious about fighting terrorism and maintaining the cessation of hostilities.

The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry voiced in its letters the Syrian government’s demand for a condemnation of the massacre from the Security Council and the UN Secretary General, denouncing both sides’ persistent silence on these heinous terrorist acts.

The government also demands that “immediate deterrent and punitive measures” be taken against the countries and regimes that are involved in supporting and funding terrorism, especially those of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, according to the letters.

H. Said

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