[3] The UK-based pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that multiple attacks killed or wounded 125 civilians, mostly Alawites, in Aqrab.

[8] Anti-government activists also claimed that wounded Alawite children came to an opposition-run field hospital in the Sunni rebel region of Houla.

[3] On 14 December, Alex Thomson of Britain's Channel 4 News filled a report after he managed to travel to the outskirts of Aqrab.

The report also suggested that there was no massacre at all and Thomson noted that conversations with a dozen other Alawites who had fled from Aqrab further backed up the three witnesses.

They stated "the rebels wanted to take the women and children to al-Houla to use them as human shields against bombardment from government forces, and they believed they would kill the remaining men".