"You pair really are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to justify the selling of military equipment to mass murdereres of their people by Britain."

Ermm No ""Christmas" neither Keith, myself or anyone else attempting to inject you with a dose of reality and commonsense are, nor have been justifying anything. What we have done is demonstrably proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that The British Government SOLD NO WEAPONS TO SYRIA"

Now as far as your snipers in Homs go:
1: First victim shot was when? (6th May 2011)

2: Were any of the 15 civilians and 11 troops killed that day killed by snipers? - "Christmas" will have all the information on this and he will produce it when he replies in detail in answer to this question.

3: Clashes continue on 8th May gunmen attack a bus - no snipers there

4: 10th May 5 to 9 people killed but they were killed by tank and machine-gun fire - not snipers

5: 20th May 11 dead, killed by machine gun fire - not snipers

6: 27th May 3 dead with direct clashes with the military - not snipers

7: 30th May 7 dead civilians and 1 dead soldier direct clashes with the Army

8: 17th July 40 dead due to shelling by tanks - not snipers

9: 29th August more violence this time machine gun fire - unconfirmed defections of soldiers from the Syrian Army

10: 28th October, Free Syrian Army in Bab al-Sebaa take on the Syrian Army loyal to Assad (17 soldiers were killed - maybe they were killed by snipers).

11: 29th October these clashes spread to Baba Amr and al-Qusur. In Baba Amr 20 soldiers were killed and 53 wounded (Could some of them have been killed by snipers "Christmas"?).

12: 3rd November, tanks opened fire on the Baba Amr district. More than 100 people, including civilians, were reportedly killed by the next day - Note by tanks not snipers.

13: 24th November, 11 defecting soldiers were killed and four wounded during clashes on the western outskirts of Homs. Later, the military conducted raids against farms further to the west killing another 15 people. "Raids against farms" - Do snipers carry out raids against farms Jim-Lad?

14: 25th November, six elite pilots, one technical officer and three other personnel were killed in Homs in an ambush by Free Syrian Army.

15: 4th December, 5 FSA insurgents were killed and 1 wounded

16: 5th December, 61 people were reported to be dead, 34 Sunnis and 27 Alawites. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an activist on the ground reported seeing "the bodies of 34 civilians, in a square in the pro-regime neighbourhood of Al-Zahra, who had been abducted by the shabiha [pro-government militia] on Monday", according to the AFP news agency. The Observatory also reported the "shabiha" abducted a bus driver and his 13 passengers in Homs province on the 5th.

Snipers do not abduct their victims before shooting them or do you disagree "Christmas".

17: 9th December, fears of a massacre by government forces were building, due to a build up of troops, government militia (Shabeeha) and 500 tanks on the outskirts of the city and an increasing number of checkpoints - No mention of snipers

18: In mid-December Der Spiegel crew managed to smuggle themself inside the city of Homs where they witnesses Baba Amr district being completely under control of FSA soldiers with checkpoints erected at the edge of the district. According to local FSA commander Shabeeha and army snipers were positioned in approximately 200 places in Homs and were shooting on everything that moved in designated zones like Cairo street which runs through the center of the city.

There ya go "Christmas" - First mention of snipers shooting at people around the 18th December 2011 a good two years after some private individual received a licence to sell 7.62 NATO ammo to Syria. Now all you have to do is provide evidence that people shot by these snipers were armed with Austrian Steyr SSG69 rifles firing ammunition (Oh sorry, that should be "firing arms") supplied two years previously by an arms dealer based in Britain (i.e. NOT the British Government).

19: 24th to 27th December 61 people killed by artillery and tank fire - not by snipers - now tell us Jim-Lad who sold Assad the tanks and the artillery because so far they seem to have done the most damage.

20: Same old same old throughout January and February with tanks and artillery doing their worst. Assad's boys killing journalists did not help.