New Report Says Syrian Rebels Committed War Crimes
BEIRUT October 11, 2013 (AP)
By KARIN LAUB Associated Press
Jihadi-led rebel fighters in Syria killed at least 190 civilians and abducted more than 200 during an offensive against pro-regime villages, committing a war crime, an international human rights group said Friday.
The Aug. 4 attacks on unarmed civilians in more than a dozen villages in the coastal province of Latakia were systematic and could even amount to a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a 105-page report based. The findings are based on a visit a month later to the area, with permission from the Syrian regime.
The report quoted witnesses as saying rebels went house to house, killing entire families or killing the men and taking women and children hostage.
The villagers belong to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam which forms the backbone of President Bashar Assad's regime — and which Sunni Muslim extremists consider heretics.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/report-syrian-rebels-committed-war-crimes-20538938
Full HRW report here:
http://www.hrw.org/node/119675/
