Cal Perry Witnesses A Live Massacre

Aljazeera English correspondent Cal Perry:

People were falling on top of each other, being cut down like weeds in a field by what I think must have been a mix of both small arms fire and machine gun fire. I saw at least two children shot. They fell immediately. People were screaming. Gunfire rattled on.

I could not take my eyes off what was quickly becoming carnage. One of the last things I remember seeing clearly were people lying flat on the road, taking cover behind those who had already been wounded or shot dead … lying in what must have been pools of blood to avoid a hail of flying hot hell.

As we passed through the army checkpoint, the soldiers were smoking and laughing; looking at each other; smiling, waving us through various barriers. I can only describe it like what it felt to me: an evil grimace of enjoyment was on their faces. We were maybe, at the most, 3km from where I had just seen people cut down, bullets tearing their bodies into pieces. It was disgusting.

And this is a massacre that he happened to stumble into and got to told us about. Imagine all the mini massacres that nobody has witnessed . This is Hama all over again. The regime (and its hacks) complains that the foreign media is inciting unrest. But then the same regime prevents journalists from operating in the country, as if in admission that they are about to commit the terrors Cal wrote about.