“Hardly a day goes by when our senses are not bludgeoned by some new outbreak of terrorism in the Middle East.  Despite our best efforts at making and keeping the peace, political, economic, and religious tensions often lead to unrest, violence, and riots.”

-Jim Bakker in “Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse”

Civilian casualities in Idlib and Hama have dramatically risen according to Amnesty International’s report that government forces are indiscriminately firing missiles and making air strikes into civilians neighborhoods.

The Amnesty International report says that the international community has not seen the war crimes happening in the two provinces because media outlets have been focused on the fighting in the larger cities of Damascus and Aleppo.

The report was released amid reports of heightened violence in Damascus and Aleppo. Rebel forces have told the BBC that government troops have been destroying civilian houses and are setting others on fire. Reports from organizations like the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights are stating rebel forces have been forced to withdraw from large parts of both cities.

In a separate report, a Syrian general who defected to the rebel forces said that President al-Assad had discussed using chemical weapons against the rebels should they lose a major city. They also discussed transferring the weapons to the Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah.