Ethnic Cleansing Is Occuring In Syria

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Battle For Strategic Syrian Town Shows Why War Has Displaced Millions -- Roy Gutman and Paul Raymond, McClatchy

REYHANLI, Turkey — Late in August, when world attention was focused on the poison gas attack near Damascus, Syrian government forces were waging an intense assault against a small rebel-held town 150 miles to the north.

The spotlight never touched on Ariha, south of Idlib, even after Sept. 3, when Syrian state media announced that the government had “cleansed” the town of “terrorist gangs.” But the two-week battle helps illuminate why Syria’s civil war has created such a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

To “cleanse” the town, government helicopters dumped dozens of “barrel bombs” – improvised explosive devices filled with shrapnel and varying in size from a large pipe to a garbage Dumpster – on houses and shops, multiple witnesses told McClatchy. Tanks and howitzers fired into the town, and the army also fired mortars, gravity bombs, vacuum bombs and cluster bombs.

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My Comment: This is ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population who have the misfortune of living in strategic areas of the country .... pure and simple.