Beheadings by Syrian Rebels Add to Atrocities, UN Says
Source: Bloomberg
Syrian opposition forces recruited a 14-year-old boy from Homs as a fighter and had a child take part in beheading two government soldiers, according to a United Nations report citing human-rights abuses by both sides in Syria’s civil war.
A conflict that began with anti-government protests amid widespread Arab revolts two years ago has mutated into a life-or-death battle pitting an Alawite-led minority, clinging to power with help from the Shiite Hezbollah militia, against Sunni-led rebels that count al-Qaeda fighters among their ranks.
While abuses by the opposition haven’t reached “the intensity and scale” of those committed by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and affiliated militias, they are becoming increasingly common and brutal, according to the report presented today in Geneva to the UN Human Rights Council.
Mass executions are publicly carried out in locations such as Daraa and Aleppo, where the rebels have established judicial and administrative authority, the 29-page report said. The number of extra-judicial killings and kidnappings by the opposition has risen, and about 86 child soldiers have been killed during combat, it said.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-04/beheadings-by-syrian-rebels-add-to-atrocities-un-says.html
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