In what was one of the more grotesque and horrific single incidents even by the standards of the overly brutal and bloody Syrian civil war, two suicide bombers detonated themselves on Oct. 1 outside a school in an area of Homs loyal to the regime, killing and wounding dozens, the majority of them children under 12. As the broken little bodies and school bags littered the streets, the hideous barbarity of such a depraved act began to sink in and sent shock waves through Syrian society, none more so than the community effected, which saw unprecedented protests the next day, openly targeting a ranking regime official for the first time: Homs Gov. Talal Barazi.
Those protests were born of a community at the breaking point, fatigued and worn down by years of a conflict with no end in sight and getting bloodier. The ugly mood is further exasperated by the perceived indifference of state media to their plight, a point made clearly in the commentary of a protest video posted online. Scathing criticism of state media coverage of war atrocities is nothing new, and reached a crescendo during the purges committed against Alawite families during the rebel takeover of Adra last year, and their abortive push into rural Latakia before that. But interestingly this time around, some regime reporters have chosen to show solidarity and break ranks with their media silence in an attempt to shed light on the issue, albeit in a private manner.
