UN: Syria opposition may have committed war crime

The United Nations said that a video posted on YouTube showing militants executing 28 Syrian soldiers at three checkpoints in the province of Idlib Thursday was evidence of war crimes.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, told reporters in Geneva that "It is very likely that this was a war crime, another one."

"We call on all parties to the conflict in Syria to respect international law," he said.

However, international as well as local human rights groups said they were trying to confirm the video's authenticity, as the video could not be independently verified.

Meanwhile, human rights group Amnesty International said the human rights watchdog received evidence that Syrian militants had carried out mass killings of security forces, being beaten up and shot down at a roadblock in Idlib.

Amnesty International's Ann Harrison told Arab-language Sky News that this shocking footage depicts a potential war crime in progress and demonstrates an utter disregard for international humanitarian law by the armed group in question.

Earlier Wednesday, a YouTube video surfaced showing the beating of about 10 soldiers before lining them on the ground and executing them with automatic rifles. Who published this video claimed to be member of the Free Syrian Army. However, no group has so far admitted carrying out the alleged killings.

In response to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said that the Syrian National Council (SNC) can no longer be seen as leading the opposition to embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Mohammed Sermini, the press officer of the SNC, denounced the interference of Washington as imperialist. He said Clinton had no right to interfere in our affairs. Syria must make its own decisions, he noted.

"Any discussions aimed at passing over the Syrian National Council or at creating new bodies to replace it are an attempt to undermine the Syrian revolution by sowing the seeds of division," the SNC said in a statement

A leading opposition figure, Waeel Hafez, in an interview with the Al-Shurak newspaper, claims the new US-backed opposition council, which is to be announced in Doha next week, is an attempt to undermine trust in the SNC.

It is worth mentioning here that the SNC has grown from 280 to 420 members, including one-third of its members who are on-the-ground activists (inside Syrian territory) and that 15 percent of its members are women.
Opinion:

No one can deny that there are foreign fighters in Syria. Perhaps they are members of al-Qaida, fighting either with the Free Syrian Army or individually against the Assad regime.

A prominent Saudi preacher, Sheikh Salman Al-Audah, warned in advance that the arrival of young people, to Syria from Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt to fight against the regime will only complicate the crisis and repeat Afghanistan experience.

Sheikh asked the foreign fighters to leave Syria to the Syrians; they do not lack courage and are quite numerous, they do not need more fighters, but more funds and weapons, he said, adding that a small number of foreign fighters would not change the course of the conflict.

Of course everyone denounces the crime that appeared on YouTube. At the same time, many condemn the international silence toward the crimes of Assad and his regime, which are proven. They are aerial bombardment, knowing that the Syrian Free Army and the foreign fighters do not have warplanes.

I think that this crime's goal, in this particular time, is to serve the Syrian regime as showing that regime was honest in his claims of fighting terrorists or al-Qaida members. Therefore, there must be an impartial investigation into this crime, so as to punish those responsible.

If the international community has intervened seriously after the death of the first 500 Syrian citizens, the situation would have not have continued to reach this critical level, as it has today. I accuse the international community, which has allowed the peaceful demonstrations to evolve. The demonstration began March 15, 2011, demanding the departure of the regime and the fall of Assad, then it turned into massacres. Unfortunately, today it is so hard to control it except with the killing of the snake's head. With Assad's death, the regime will fall.

I guess the United States is not in a hurry to intervene positively in resolving the Syrian crisis, as I previously thought. This is very clear through the requests of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who believes that there is still time to form a new opposition. According to what was mentioned by the Free Syrian Army today on their website, what Clinton requested from the Syrian opposition means, in an indirect way, continued fighting until the U.S. elaborates on a new opposition to be approved by Clinton!

Sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_9SNnuLuRU

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/319286/syria-opposition-accuses-us-of-undermining-revolution

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4300433,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20177384