Syria's conflict deepened on two fronts as hundreds of families streamed out of areas dominated by the Alawite clans of President Bashar al-Assad and it was confirmed that Israeli fighter jets struck convoys carrying missiles.
The massacre in Baydah on Thursday followed a build-up of hostility from surrounding villages
Sunni Muslims sought safety after a second village in two days was destroyed by death squads apparently bent on ethnic cleansing.
Relatives of the dead in the Sunni Muslim villages of Bayda and Ras al-Nabaah told The Sunday Telegraph that scores, possibly hundreds of men, women and children had been killed by Alawite militias that attacked the villages on Thursday and Friday. Pictures posted online showed piles of disfigured bodies, including women and young children.
With the violence continuing to draw in neighbouring countries, Israeli officials confirmed air strikes against a convoy they said was carrying advanced weaponry, believed to be sophisticated Russian-made missiles, and transferring them to the Lebanese Shia group Hizbollah.
The attack was carried out from over Lebanese territory, without entering Syrian air space, but the two events will strengthen the impression that the war is becoming a regional sectarian conflict between Alawites and Shia, backed by Russia, Iran and Hizbollah, and Sunnis backed by the West.
The massacre in Baydah on Thursday followed a build-up of hostility from surrounding villages, one survivor told The Sunday Telegraph by satellite phone.
"Since the revolution started security has been arresting people in a systematic way, but during the last two weeks the process was accelerated and some of the people who were arrested were killed in prison after torture," the man, who gave his name as Abu Abdullah, said.
He said he had watched events of Thursday from a hiding place. There had been a fight between young men of the village trying to avoid arrest and security forces, several of whom were killed, but the men had withdrawn.
"Security and Shabiha militia entered the village with knives and guns and started to kill everybody they met. Almost 60 per cent of the women and children of the village were killed," he said.
He estimated the number of dead at 300, though activists outside the country could only confirm 50. Abu Abdullah said snipers made getting into the village to count impossible.
A man who gave his name as Shami, who is from Ras al-Nabaah but has fled to Lebanon, said hundreds of people had died there. Activists said they had counted 77 names so far but believed the toll might be 250.
"It's a tragic situation, entire families were slaughtered," he said.
"The people recognised the faces of some of these people who were attacking. Some of them are government employees from the nearby Alawites villages - they call them the National Army, who are just civilian Alawites who are armed."
He said a cousin of his mother was killed in Ras al-Nabaah with his wife, three daughters, son, and the son's wife and three children. He said in addition, 30 members of his wife's family were killed in Baydah.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said hundreds of Sunni families were now leaving the area.
The United States state department condemned "atrocities against the civilian population".
"We will not lose sight of the men, women, and children whose lives are being so brutally cut short," it said in a statement.
A statement by the opposition Syrian National Coalition said the residents had received warnings.
"The killings in the Syrian coastal villages are a form of gradual ethnic cleansing, similar to those carried out by Serb forces in Bosnia two decades ago," it said.
The opposition believe the Assad regime is trying to carve out a defensible zone from its Alawite heartland in the north, taking in Shia areas close to Hizbollah territory in eastern Lebanon.
Israel fears that President Assad will be forced to strengthen his existing alliance with Hizbollah and Iran, and that Israel itself will be a prime target.
Israeli officials said the missiles targeted in the air attack on Thursday night were "game-changing". It was the second Israeli strike this year, after the bombing of a convoy carrying missiles to the Lebanese border in January.
The Israeli government has called on the United States to take steps to safeguard the Assad regime's chemical weapons store, which is believed to be among the largest in the world, but despite earlier reports it is thought no chemical weapons sites were attacked.
The mission was launched from Lebanese airspace probably using the Israeli Air Force's "stand-off" bombs which are able to cover significant distances and enable Israel to strike a Syrian facility without entering Syrian territory.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Israeli military official told the Telegraph missiles would form the bulk of any future Hizbollah assault on Israel.
"We are preparing for the next war," he said. "Hizbollah today has been building up to a very significant military capacity. It is a better prepared, heavier armed organisation than it was in 2006." Hizbollah fought a 34-day war with Israel in the summer of 2006, during which hundreds of Katyusha rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into Israel. The group is now estimated to possess tens of thousands of rockets with a range covering every corner of Israel.
The tight alliance of Hizbollah, Iran and Syria has been oiled with a steady flow of money and weaponry – a flow that has increased dramatically during the Syrian conflict.
Israeli officials voiced concerns earlier this week that a small amount of chemical weapons may have already been transferred to Hizbollah, possibly sarin gas.
Of greater concern to Israel, however, are Syria's SA17 model anti-aircraft missiles, believed to be the target of January's strike. President Assad's arsenal also contains missiles that can be launched naval vessels and long-range ballistic missiles.
President Barack Obama has shown himself unwilling to get drawn further into the conflict, saying the evidence is not strong enough that Syria has employed chemical weapons. Shlomo Brom, formerly the IDF's head of strategic planning, said he was also sceptical.
"The regime has been trying to break the tie through the use of stronger and stronger weapons categories but I am seriously doubtful of reports the regime has used chemical weapons," he said. "We are talking weapons of mass destruction and we are just not seeing that level of destruction.
"There is no indication that they [the chemical weapons stores] are really threatened. Because of the nature of these weapons, they are usually kept in remote places, somewhere in the desert, that are relatively easy to protect."
Last week, the Israeli army called 2,000 reservists to the Lebanese border for a three-day surprise drill, designed to test its readiness for conflict.
"We are lucky to have allies, the US and others, but we built the IDF and our security forces in a way that enables us to defend ourselves by ourselves," a senior Israeli military source said.
"You have to be hands-on, ready to operate if and when necessary."
Sunni Muslims sought safety after a second village in two days was destroyed by death squads apparently bent on ethnic cleansing.
Relatives of the dead in the Sunni Muslim villages of Bayda and Ras al-Nabaah told The Sunday Telegraph that scores, possibly hundreds of men, women and children had been killed by Alawite militias that attacked the villages on Thursday and Friday. Pictures posted online showed piles of disfigured bodies, including women and young children.
With the violence continuing to draw in neighbouring countries, Israeli officials confirmed air strikes against a convoy they said was carrying advanced weaponry, believed to be sophisticated Russian-made missiles, and transferring them to the Lebanese Shia group Hizbollah.
The attack was carried out from over Lebanese territory, without entering Syrian air space, but the two events will strengthen the impression that the war is becoming a regional sectarian conflict between Alawites and Shia, backed by Russia, Iran and Hizbollah, and Sunnis backed by the West.
The massacre in Baydah on Thursday followed a build-up of hostility from surrounding villages, one survivor told The Sunday Telegraph by satellite phone.
"Since the revolution started security has been arresting people in a systematic way, but during the last two weeks the process was accelerated and some of the people who were arrested were killed in prison after torture," the man, who gave his name as Abu Abdullah, said.
He said he had watched events of Thursday from a hiding place. There had been a fight between young men of the village trying to avoid arrest and security forces, several of whom were killed, but the men had withdrawn.
"Security and Shabiha militia entered the village with knives and guns and started to kill everybody they met. Almost 60 per cent of the women and children of the village were killed," he said.
He estimated the number of dead at 300, though activists outside the country could only confirm 50. Abu Abdullah said snipers made getting into the village to count impossible.
A man who gave his name as Shami, who is from Ras al-Nabaah but has fled to Lebanon, said hundreds of people had died there. Activists said they had counted 77 names so far but believed the toll might be 250.
"It's a tragic situation, entire families were slaughtered," he said.
"The people recognised the faces of some of these people who were attacking. Some of them are government employees from the nearby Alawites villages - they call them the National Army, who are just civilian Alawites who are armed."
He said a cousin of his mother was killed in Ras al-Nabaah with his wife, three daughters, son, and the son's wife and three children. He said in addition, 30 members of his wife's family were killed in Baydah.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said hundreds of Sunni families were now leaving the area.
The United States state department condemned "atrocities against the civilian population".
"We will not lose sight of the men, women, and children whose lives are being so brutally cut short," it said in a statement.
A statement by the opposition Syrian National Coalition said the residents had received warnings.
"The killings in the Syrian coastal villages are a form of gradual ethnic cleansing, similar to those carried out by Serb forces in Bosnia two decades ago," it said.
The opposition believe the Assad regime is trying to carve out a defensible zone from its Alawite heartland in the north, taking in Shia areas close to Hizbollah territory in eastern Lebanon.
Israel fears that President Assad will be forced to strengthen his existing alliance with Hizbollah and Iran, and that Israel itself will be a prime target.
Israeli officials said the missiles targeted in the air attack on Thursday night were "game-changing". It was the second Israeli strike this year, after the bombing of a convoy carrying missiles to the Lebanese border in January.
The Israeli government has called on the United States to take steps to safeguard the Assad regime's chemical weapons store, which is believed to be among the largest in the world, but despite earlier reports it is thought no chemical weapons sites were attacked.
The mission was launched from Lebanese airspace probably using the Israeli Air Force's "stand-off" bombs which are able to cover significant distances and enable Israel to strike a Syrian facility without entering Syrian territory.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Israeli military official told the Telegraph missiles would form the bulk of any future Hizbollah assault on Israel.
"We are preparing for the next war," he said. "Hizbollah today has been building up to a very significant military capacity. It is a better prepared, heavier armed organisation than it was in 2006." Hizbollah fought a 34-day war with Israel in the summer of 2006, during which hundreds of Katyusha rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into Israel. The group is now estimated to possess tens of thousands of rockets with a range covering every corner of Israel.
The tight alliance of Hizbollah, Iran and Syria has been oiled with a steady flow of money and weaponry – a flow that has increased dramatically during the Syrian conflict.
Israeli officials voiced concerns earlier this week that a small amount of chemical weapons may have already been transferred to Hizbollah, possibly sarin gas.
Of greater concern to Israel, however, are Syria's SA17 model anti-aircraft missiles, believed to be the target of January's strike. President Assad's arsenal also contains missiles that can be launched naval vessels and long-range ballistic missiles.
President Barack Obama has shown himself unwilling to get drawn further into the conflict, saying the evidence is not strong enough that Syria has employed chemical weapons. Shlomo Brom, formerly the IDF's head of strategic planning, said he was also sceptical.
"The regime has been trying to break the tie through the use of stronger and stronger weapons categories but I am seriously doubtful of reports the regime has used chemical weapons," he said. "We are talking weapons of mass destruction and we are just not seeing that level of destruction.
"There is no indication that they [the chemical weapons stores] are really threatened. Because of the nature of these weapons, they are usually kept in remote places, somewhere in the desert, that are relatively easy to protect."
Last week, the Israeli army called 2,000 reservists to the Lebanese border for a three-day surprise drill, designed to test its readiness for conflict.
"We are lucky to have allies, the US and others, but we built the IDF and our security forces in a way that enables us to defend ourselves by ourselves," a senior Israeli military source said.
"You have to be hands-on, ready to operate if and when necessary."
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