Civilians in Syria have been protesting every Friday for years now. Before Assad unleashed his military neighborhoods and entire cities would take to the street

Civilians in Syria have been protesting every Friday for years now. Before Assad unleashed his military neighborhoods and entire cities would take to the streets in peaceful demonstration. From January 27 2012 in Zamalka Syria: http://youtu.be/M6GyEm3_uqA http://youtu.be/M6GyEm3_uqA As Assad called in regular military forces, even before "National Defense" militias, the crowds in the streets were gunned at, chased down, killed. Here is an image I stitched from video showing a BMP chasing people in the streets during Assad's "referendum" when the pretense of elections were used to kill more[1]. This brings me to Zamalka[2], this neighborhood is in Rif Dimashq which is the Governorate just outside of where Damascus is located. During the time just before the military was unleashed upon civilian centers, there was massive swells of demonstrations, mainly in more rural areas of Syria like Talbisah. For a short while Assad was able to shrug off the start of military action in these rural areas as his core supporters are from neighborhoods like those ringing Damascus. The enemy was simply banging on the gates, never mind the enemy being civilians. Now Assad's forces been bolstering Homs in sectarian slaughter while even letting ardent neighborhoods come under fire. Alawite citizens are being shipped in to areas purged of Sunnis in Homs. Repeat, population cleansing, dispersant, resettling[3]. So it seems that Assad is burning areas even closer to Damascus than Jobar, while setting up an Alawite shield for the wealthiest supporters towards Latakia in the west. Not good. Some more on Talbisah, here is a very good account that uploaded videos from the early phases of demonstrations to bitter battles against the military base that neighbored the residential neighborhood. Watching the videos from oldest uploaded to newest is a painful descent into madness[4]. [1] http://i.imgur.com/prkBmh.jpg http://i.imgur.com/prkBmh.jpg [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamalka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamalka [3] http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/syrian-army-renews-offensive-homs http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/syrian-army-ren... [4] http://www.youtube.com/user/talbisah/videos?flow=grid&view=0&sort=da http://www.youtube.com/user/talbisah/videos?flow=grid&view=0...