Is Assad's Strategy To Empty Syria Of His Opponents Succeeding?

Turkish soldiers stand guard as Syrians wait behind the border fences near the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, September 18, 2014. I (REUTERS/KADIR CELIKCAN)

Mike Giglio and Munzer al-Awad, BuzzFeed: Assad’s Strategy Is To Create Refugees

“They want to empty the country.”

ISTANBUL — The 53-year-old father of two was convinced that Bashar al-Assad wanted him to flee Syria.

More than two years after he buried the bodies from a massacre in his village near Damascus by forces loyal to the Syrian president, he sat in an Istanbul park alongside dozens of other refugees, waiting with their life jackets to make the journey to Europe by sea.

“They want to empty the country,” he said, sitting with his wife and two children as he described how government soldiers had bombed the village of Jdeidet al-Fadel and then executed residents in their homes, suspecting them of rebel sympathies. Some, he said, were “beheaded like chickens.” After helping with the burials, he snuck his family into Turkey.

WNU Editor: If that is his strategy .... it looks like it is working.