Times of Israel
The Syrian civil war rages on and the body count mounts, one pro-regime television journalist has elicited the ire of social media over her propensity to appear laughing and smiling around the bodies of slain Syrians.
Kinana Allouche, a reporter for the pro-Bashar Assad channel Al-Sama TV, posted a selfie of herself in April in which she was seen grinning beside the bodies of dead rebels, leading to condemnation and disgust by users on Twitter and Facebook.
A video making the rounds in recent days appears to show Allouche standing and laughing over the bodies of children killed in fighting in the city of Aleppo, as men — possibly the children’s fathers — scream in anger.
Users on Twitter called Allouche’s behavior “despicable” and “scandalous,” others called her names and expressed disgust.
One Syrian opposition activist quoted by Israel’s Walla website said the smiling selfie “can somehow be explained as [the rebels] were fighting against regime forces, and she was glad they were dead…but there is no excuse in the world for laughing over the dead bodies of children who were killed in areas controlled by the regime.”
Fierce clashes were reported in Aleppo between rebels and pro-government forces over the weekend and into Monday. Syria’s largest city and once its commercial center has been contested since the summer of 2012.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed since the country’s civil war began in 2011.