Syria Atrocities

[Gruesome videos]

Syrian rebel bites heart of dead soldier: video

BEIRUT | Mon May 13, 2013 8:38am EDT

(Reuters) - A video of a Syrian rebel commander cutting the heart out of a soldier and biting into is emblematic of a civil war that has rapidly descended into sectarian hatred and revenge killings, Human Rights Watch said on Monday. #
The New York-based group said an amateur video posted on the Internet on Sunday shows Abu Sakkar, a founder of the rebel Farouq Brigade who is well known to journalists as an insurgent from Homs, cutting into the torso of a dead soldier.
The video has caused outrage among both supporters of President Bashar al-Assad and opposition figures.
"I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog," the man says to offscreen cheers of his comrades shouting "Allahu akbar (God is great)".
The Syrian conflict started with peaceful protests in March 2011, but when these were suppressed it gradually turned into an increasingly sectarian civil war which, according to one opposition monitoring group, has cost more than 80,000 lives.
Majority Sunni Muslims lead the revolt, while Assad - whose family have ruled for over four decades - gets his core support from his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said that he had seen an original, unedited copy of the video and that Abu Sakkar's identity had been confirmed by rebel sources in Homs and by images of him in other videos wearing the same black jacket as in the latest clip and with the same rings on his fingers.
"The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence," said Bouckaert.
He said that in the unedited version of the film, Abu Sakkar instructs his men to "slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them", before biting into the heart.
Abu Sakkar has been seen in previous videos firing rockets at Lebanese Shi'ite villages on the border and posing with the body of a soldier purportedly from the Lebanese Shi'ite militant Hezbollah group, which is helping Assad's forces.
Reuters cannot independently verify videos from Syria, where access is restricted by the government and security constraints.

(An edited version of the video can be found here)
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/13/us-syria-crisis-mutilation-idUSBRE94C0EH20130513
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4 June 2013 Last updated at 11:58

'New levels of brutality in Syria'

Syria's war has reached "new levels of brutality", the UN says, with evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children's rights #

4 June 2013 Last updated at 14:43

Syria conflict has reached new levels of brutality - UN

Syria's war has reached "new levels of brutality", the UN says, with evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children's rights.
Children have been taken hostage or forced to watch torture, it says, while others have been killed while fighting.#
It says it suspects there are "reasonable grounds" to believe chemical weapons have been deployed.
And it urges foreign powers not to increase the availability of arms in Syria.
The issue of arms has been high on the international agenda of late, with the EU lifting an embargo on the sale of arms to Syria while Russia has insisted it is going ahead with the sale of an advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system to Syria.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the contract had not yet been fulfilled and Russia did not want to "disturb the balance in the region".
He said he was "disappointed" by the EU move.
Meanwhile, a civilian died when shells exploded near the Russian embassy in Damascus, according to the UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Russia is an ally of President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian rebels have targeted the embassy several times since the uprising against his regime began two years ago.
The international powers are struggling to set a date for a peace conference on Syria, where the conflict is believed to have cost at least 80,000 lives.

'Daily reality'

The UN Commission of Inquiry has so far been barred from Syria and was forced to rely on first-hand accounts from the country.
Its report says it "documents for the first time the systematic imposition of sieges, the use of chemical agents and forcible displacement" in Syria.
"War crimes and crimes against humanity have become a daily reality," it says.
The report accuses both sides of abuses, but says rebel actions did not "reach the intensity and scale" of abuses committed by government-allied forces.
Syria's UN ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui has rejected the report, saying the commission is "excessively exaggerating their conclusions and outcomes" while it "totally neglects the substantial events, or even marginalises them".
"The Committee, despite our warnings, insisted on using sectarian language which is rejected by all brackets of the Syrian society."
In the four months covered by this report - between 15 January and 15 May 2013 - investigators documented 17 suspected massacres, out of a total of 30 since the conflict began.
Sieges - with civilians trapped in their homes and reliant on their captors for food, water, medicines and power - are now being used systematically as weapons of war by government forces and affiliated militia and in some instances by anti-government forces, says the report.
Civilians are now becoming the victims of forced displacement by both sides, where they are threatened with attack if they do not leave the area.
The report documents new violations of children's rights on top of being routinely killed, detained and displaced.
In one attack by government forces on Sanamein, Deraa on 10 April, "children were forced to watch the torture or killing of parents".
In another incident in April, this time in Rastan, Homs, checkpoint personnel "threatened to shoot two girls aged nine and seven who started crying during their father's interrogation".
Anti-government forces were also guilty of kidnapping and other violations of children's rights, the report says.
It says 86 child combatants fighting on behalf of rebel forces have now been killed in the two-year conflict - nearly half of them in 2013 alone.
The report said sexual violence including rape has been used against women, mainly by government forces.

'Cost of impasse'

There are "reasonable grounds" to believe that chemical weapons were used in attacks by government forces in Syria in recent months, the UN says.
The report said there were "reasonable grounds to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used" during attacks on Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, 19 March; al-Otaybeh, Damascus, 19 March; Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, Aleppo, 13 April; and Saraqeb, Idlib province, 29 April.
But it adds that it "has not been possible, on the evidence available, to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator".
And it was unable to rule out their use by opposition forces. It calls on Damascus to allow a team of UN chemical weapons experts into the country - a request Damascus has so far denied.
But Commission member and former war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte warned reporters not to overemphasise the chemical weapons issue, AFP news agency reports.
"We have so many deaths in Syria now... so please don't make the use of chemical weapons in Syria now the most important issue," she said.
The report concludes that the gravity of offences committed by both sides requires judicial proceedings "at the national and international levels".
It says there can be no military solution, and urges the polarised international community to pursue a negotiated peace.
"There is a human cost to the political impasse that has come to characterise the response of the international community to the war in Syria...
"Increased arm transfers hurt the prospect of a political settlement to the conflict... and have devastating consequences for civilians," it says, in what correspondents say is a pointed message to foreign powers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22765692
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