Carnation Roses “Basel Karfoul”, A Tale of Sacrifice written with Sacred Blood

Lawyer Ali Eid wrote: “Basil Karfoul… I Remember this name well. Our people in Aleppo will remain, for a long time, talking about this heroic fighter who came from the mountains of the coast, specifically from the Dreikish countryside, the village of Bawaida Zmam, to defend Aleppo and fall martyr upon its walls against the Takfiri gangs.

It was only a coincidence that made Basel go out to take his place on Al-Mets missile launcher instead of his companion, Ahmed Abbas, who was on an emergency leave in Tartous due to the death of his uncle two days before.

This happened when the soldiers were instructed to move and stationed after receiving information stating that militants from the northeast of Idlib are planning to storm Aleppo, using four booby trapped  BMBs. 

While Basel and his comrade Khateeb were preparing the missile pad on the roof of one of the five-story buildings, he received a phone call from his friend Ahmed Abbas telling him that he knew about the battle and he was coming to join them in the battle..Basel and his friend had already taken their positions and prepared themselves for the confrontation , so “Khateeb” sat behind the rocket launcher and Basil was sitting next to him watching what was going on with his telescope.

Moments later, the attack began and large numbers of women, children, and elderly people started running from death. The gunmen attacked viciously targeting everything in front of them , as a result  Khateeb was  hit in his head and Basil in his shoulder. “Khateeb” was martyred immediately, so Basil pulled him from behind the podium and stayed in his place. Immediately Abbas Al-Hussein came to support  Basil who  launched the missile towards  the source of fire and shelling which was targeting the residential neighborhood. The missile was launched  and the booby-trap exploded as if it had been a volcano that erupted suddenly. Far away, Ahmed Abbas was screaming to Basil, asking him to withdraw with the civilians.

“It is too late, Hara, the gunmen are down there and their whoops are deafening  my ear, Basil yelled loudly as he tried to fire the second missile. Basil and Ahmed were from one village in Tartous, they are accustomed to calling each other “Hara” which  means lane, because they are from one lane, and this item is similar to the word “Deaa”, (village) that al-Kindi Hospital martyrs were calling each other two days before their martyrdom.

As the second booby trapped car  approached, Basil fired a missile, which detonated the treacherous machine, transforming it into a mass of rage that vanished in the air.

Dust covered the place, so the gunmen took advantage of the situation and inserted three carts of sprayers of the type that the municipalities use to combat insects and released smoke intensively in  a way that there is totally no vision. Thus the gunmen entered the grand floors and basements of the building on which Basil was positioned.Basil is still on the surface with a bleeding shoulder trying to evaluate the war situation to take the right decision for what he must do. He closed his eyes with his hand on his wounded shoulder and advanced to the third missile, Abbas helped him to carry and fire the missile. Abbas was not a specialist in Mets, but he was a soldier at the Scientific Research Center in Aleppo, who had come on a mission to support Basil’s forces, so the attack began while he was still there so he remained to support Basil despite his lack of experience with The Mets. ..

Thick smoke overwhelmed everything, nothing was clear on the horizon,  Basil still closing his eyes  pressing  more on his eyelids and listening very carefully to the sounds around him. Suddenly he  opened his eyes to realize that what he hears is nothing but the sound of the third car bomb that penetrates the  thick smoke towards him, so he turned toward the sound and  fired the missile that turned the third booby-trap into flying fragments in the air.

Basil felt that his movement was slow, he wanted to control the situation.H e did not have enough time  to prevent what happened-the fourth car bomb exploded before Basil and Abbas succeeded in firing the fourth missile .

The pressure of the explosion was so strong that Basel and his companion, Abbas, were thrown off the roof of the building each of them fell in a different place. Basil fell on a tiled roof of one of the ground floors. The fall was very painful, especially because he fell on his back and lost his ability to move his legs. Abbas fell in front of a destroyed house, and his feet were shattered. Fortunately, a girl from the area was hiding in the house, where Abbas fell. She crawled towards him in an attempt to pull him into the house but she did not succeed due to his heavy weight, so she brought some pieces of clothe and ointments. After she wrapped his feet with a piece of cloth she went back and hid again in her demolished home while she was watching Abbas until his friends found  him.

Ahmad, “Yamen Sabbagh” and the chief warrant officer “Abu Ali Mahdi” managed to reach Abbas. Abu Ali Mahdi stayed with Abbas, while Ahmed and Yamen moved towards Basel, under heavy fire coverage that was provided to them by a soldier from the back to reach Basel as soon as possible. Basel was motionless looking at the blurred sky while he was  hearing  the voice of his comrades telling him that they are coming. He did not answer because the gunmen were only meters away from him and he is afraid that they will notice him if he shouts.

As the army advanced and the militants receded, Ahmed managed to reach  one of the roofs where he saw Basil lay on his back above the brick roof. Basil made a slight sign with his hand to Ahmed telling him that he was alive. Ahmed quickly descended and slipped towards him, but it was difficult to reach him quickly because the gunmen were still near him. The vision became clear in Basil’s eyes, the sky became clear as a tear descending from the eyes of his mother. The sounds of the army advancing towards him are very similar to the sound of the birds he used to hear in his village in the countryside of Dreikish. Suddenly, everything turned into  heavy silence, a black thing completely covered the sky , it was one of the gunmen, standing in front of Basil after seeing his body  over the brick tent. Basil did not make any sound or movement so that the gunman might think he was dead, but the terrorist  gunmen usually  kill the soldiers again after their martyrdom, without any respect for the dignity and stature of death. The terrorist shot Bassel who looked at the sky without closing his eyes exactly as  Al-Kindy Hospital martyrs had done before. The terrible silence was penetrated by the sound of a cowardly  blind bullet that settled in Basil’s head followed  by another bullet in his heart, ending Basil’s life after he saved Aleppo with his faith, strength, patience and will.

His comrades managed to reach him, they did not dare to think of anything other than to carry him to the ambulance and  take him to the hospital where the doctor told them that, unfortunately, he had died.

Fares al-Shihabi, a member of the Syrian People’s Assembly, said: “Aleppo is indebted to the son of Tartous, the heroic martyr Basil Karfoul, who saved hundreds of civilians in al- Zahra Front from three booby traps that were to commit a real massacre. 

Carnation roses are:

-The martyr Basil Karfoul from Tartous, Dreikish

-Ahmed Abbas from Tartous.

-The wounded Abbas al-Hussein from Hama, Masyaf

-Yamen Sabbagh from al- Qerdaha

 Abu Ali Mahdi, Al Foah area

The martyr Khateeb from  Nobul.

Amal Farhat