Syria - The false reports of attacks against christians, of forced conversions to Islam and of "Sex Jihad"

rebel fighters in Syria

The role of foreign jihadists linked to al-Qaida in Syria has been the subject of intense discussion in the Western media, among think tanks and inside governments. Yet despite the attention paid to the issue, the research behind the reports published is often thin.

In early September, for example, the regime attributed an attack by diverse rebel groups on two checkpoints held by Christian militiamen in the western Syrian city of Malloula to al-Qaida. It claimed that the group had attacked and damaged churches and that it drove Christians into the streets and forced them to convert to Islam, with the threat of decapitation if they didn't. This horrific version of the story made its way into reporting by American and British news agencies. Indeed, few reported that the nuns at Maaloula's Tekla monastery had denied that such attacks had even taken place.There's a good reason for this, too: Very few foreign journalists are still traveling within the areas of Syria that are no longer controlled by the regime of dictator Bashar Assad. Of course, other factors also influence the reporting. Right from the start, the regime described the insurgency in its propaganda as the action of "foreign terrorists," and it has often used the Russian media in particular as a platform for spreading false accounts of events.

Where Are the Fact-Checkers?

There's a general tendency in the media for any story of a purported al-Qaida atrocity to get considerable coverage without any regard for fact-checking the story and its accuracy. The examples are numerous -- from attacks on churches to the alleged exodus of radical young Tunisian women making "sex jihad" in Syria, where dozens of young fighters are purportedly sharing their bodies for the cause.

The presence of foreign radicals (even when they weren't even there) is often used as an argument against any military intervention or even just providing weapons aid to the rebels.

Source: DER SPIEGEL , "Jihad Tourists: How Dangerous Are Syria's Foreign Fighters?"

2nd source: Le Nouvel Observateur , TUNISIE. La vérité sur le "djihad sexuel"

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