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