Syrian government,ISIS committing war crimes: U.N.
Written by : Mohamed Abdel Fattah
27 August 2014
The Syrian government and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants are both committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in their war against each other, U.N. investigators said on Wednesday.
The findings are the result of six months of interviews and evidence collected between January and July this year as part of an inquiry into human rights violations inside Syria.
The period covered in the report coincides with the growth of the IS group in Syria, which seeks to create an independent Islamic State in an area that stretches across Syria and Iraq.
The U.N. report, the commission of inquiry's eighth since being set up three years ago, is based on 480 interviews and documentary evidence gathered by its team, which is trying to build a case for future criminal prosecution.
The report from the commission, which has been tasked to investigate potential war crimes in the country, marks the first time the United Nations has assigned blame for the use of the chemical agent. Specifically, the commission said government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad likely unleashed chlorine on civilians in northern Syrian villages eight times in April.
Syrian government forces have dropped barrel bombs on civilian areas, including some believed to contain the chemical agent chlorine in eight incidents in April, and have committed other war crimes that should be prosecuted.
Deaths in custody in Syrian jails are on the rise and forensic analysis of 26,948 photographs allegedly taken from 2011-2013 in government detention centers back its "longstanding findings of systematic torture and deaths of detainees".
"Forced truces, a mark of the government's strategy of siege and bombardment, are often followed by mass arrests of men of fighting age, many of whom disappear," it said.
The Syrian observatory for human rights reported on the 13th of August that the Islamic State had captured several towns and villages from rival Islamist groups in the Syrian province of Aleppo.
The Islamic State has unleashed a bloody wave of repression in Syria, conducting mass executions, threats and house demolitions.
After the Al-Qaeda splinter group seized control of Mosul on June 10, it loaded up to 1,500 prisoners from the city’s Badush prison onto trucks and took them to a vacant area for screening, Pillay said. Sunni inmates were taken away again on the trucks.
“[ISIS] gunmen then yelled insults at the remaining prisoners, lined them up in four rows, ordered them to kneel and opened fire,” she said, adding that up to 670 inmates lost their lives.
Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen were among the minorities targeted by the militants.
Hundreds of members of the Yazidi community in Nineveh have been killed and up to 2,500 were kidnapped at the beginning of August. And in Cotcho village in Southern Sinjar on 15 August, hundreds more Yazidis were killed and abducted.
The ISIS, which has captured large areas of Syria and Iraq, see Shia Muslims and minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, a Kurdish ethno- religious community, as infidels. ISIS has called on the Yazidi community to either convert to Islam or accept being killed.
Meanwhile, United States began to conduct exploration and surveillance planes over Syria after the approval of President Barack Obama on it, according to the Associated Press, in a move that could pave the way to the air strikes against ISIS.
Defense officials said Monday evening that the Pentagon was sending in manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Syria, using a combination of aircraft, including drones and possibly U2 spy planes. Mr. Obama approved the flights over the weekend, a senior administration official said.
U.S. officials said the United States is preparing military options in order to put pressure on "Islamic state" in Syrian territory, but stressed that they have not yet made any decision to expand U.S military action except limited air strikes taking place in Iraq.
President Barack Obama sought for limited military campaign in Iraq, focusing on "the protection of U.S. diplomats and civilians under immediate threat." But officials have not ruled out a military escalation on the Islamic State, which has increased from overt threats to the United States.
Sources
www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28948555
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/syria-isis-war-crimes-united-nations-un
english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/27/Assad-ISIS-committing-war-crimes-U-N-.html
27 August 2014
The Syrian government and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants are both committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in their war against each other, U.N. investigators said on Wednesday.
The findings are the result of six months of interviews and evidence collected between January and July this year as part of an inquiry into human rights violations inside Syria.
The period covered in the report coincides with the growth of the IS group in Syria, which seeks to create an independent Islamic State in an area that stretches across Syria and Iraq.
The U.N. report, the commission of inquiry's eighth since being set up three years ago, is based on 480 interviews and documentary evidence gathered by its team, which is trying to build a case for future criminal prosecution.
The report from the commission, which has been tasked to investigate potential war crimes in the country, marks the first time the United Nations has assigned blame for the use of the chemical agent. Specifically, the commission said government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad likely unleashed chlorine on civilians in northern Syrian villages eight times in April.
Syrian government forces have dropped barrel bombs on civilian areas, including some believed to contain the chemical agent chlorine in eight incidents in April, and have committed other war crimes that should be prosecuted.
Deaths in custody in Syrian jails are on the rise and forensic analysis of 26,948 photographs allegedly taken from 2011-2013 in government detention centers back its "longstanding findings of systematic torture and deaths of detainees".
"Forced truces, a mark of the government's strategy of siege and bombardment, are often followed by mass arrests of men of fighting age, many of whom disappear," it said.
The Syrian observatory for human rights reported on the 13th of August that the Islamic State had captured several towns and villages from rival Islamist groups in the Syrian province of Aleppo.
The Islamic State has unleashed a bloody wave of repression in Syria, conducting mass executions, threats and house demolitions.
After the Al-Qaeda splinter group seized control of Mosul on June 10, it loaded up to 1,500 prisoners from the city’s Badush prison onto trucks and took them to a vacant area for screening, Pillay said. Sunni inmates were taken away again on the trucks.
“[ISIS] gunmen then yelled insults at the remaining prisoners, lined them up in four rows, ordered them to kneel and opened fire,” she said, adding that up to 670 inmates lost their lives.
Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen were among the minorities targeted by the militants.
Hundreds of members of the Yazidi community in Nineveh have been killed and up to 2,500 were kidnapped at the beginning of August. And in Cotcho village in Southern Sinjar on 15 August, hundreds more Yazidis were killed and abducted.
The ISIS, which has captured large areas of Syria and Iraq, see Shia Muslims and minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, a Kurdish ethno- religious community, as infidels. ISIS has called on the Yazidi community to either convert to Islam or accept being killed.
Meanwhile, United States began to conduct exploration and surveillance planes over Syria after the approval of President Barack Obama on it, according to the Associated Press, in a move that could pave the way to the air strikes against ISIS.
Defense officials said Monday evening that the Pentagon was sending in manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Syria, using a combination of aircraft, including drones and possibly U2 spy planes. Mr. Obama approved the flights over the weekend, a senior administration official said.
U.S. officials said the United States is preparing military options in order to put pressure on "Islamic state" in Syrian territory, but stressed that they have not yet made any decision to expand U.S military action except limited air strikes taking place in Iraq.
President Barack Obama sought for limited military campaign in Iraq, focusing on "the protection of U.S. diplomats and civilians under immediate threat." But officials have not ruled out a military escalation on the Islamic State, which has increased from overt threats to the United States.
Sources
www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28948555
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/syria-isis-war-crimes-united-nations-un
english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/27/Assad-ISIS-committing-war-crimes-U-N-.html
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