The military shelled the area and machine gunned those in flight some were captured and shot and killed.

Several other communities were also shelled on 14 July, with rockets landing near a nursery school, near a playground, and directly hitting people's homes.

Assad, after all, literally unleashed the Islamic State s current savagery in May 2011, he released hundreds of Islamic radicals from prison, quickly supplying the infant group with fighters and leaders. He then methodically shelled positions held by moderate rebels, while no less methodically sparing the Islamic State s stronghold in Raqqa.

But the big problem was that the North s leadership apparently interpreted China s policy as a sign of unwillingness to pressure the North on nuclear matters. Indeed, North Korean behavior became much more provocative, including an attack in 2010 that sank the South Korean corvette Cheonan and another in which the South s Yeonpyeong Island was shelled.

The phrase Weimar Russia first appeared about 13 years ago, at the height of the confrontation between then President Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet that ended when Yeltsin s tanks shelled the parliament. The meaning was clear to all Weimar Russia, like Weimar Germany, signified a weak republic attacked from within by nationalists yearning to restore authoritarian ways.