New report on abuses by Syrian rebels could feed Western unease about those fighting Assad

Washington Post

11 OCTOBER, 2013

Syrian villagers described watching rebels advance on their homes, as mortars thudded around them. By the end of the August attack, 190 civilians had been killed, including children, the elderly and the handicapped, a human rights group said Friday in its most detailed account of alleged war crimes committed by those fighting the Damascus regime.

Human Rights Watch said the offensive against 14 pro-regime villages in the province of Latakia was planned and led by five Islamic extremist groups, including two linked to al-Qaida. Other rebel groups, including those belonging to the Free Syrian Army, a Western-backed alliance, participated in the campaign, but there is no evidence linking them to war crimes, the 105-page report said.

The new allegations are bound to heighten Western unease about those trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad and about who would take over if they were to succeed.

“It creates justifiable alarm that the opposition has been infiltrated and undermined by radicals,” said David L. Phillips, a former U.S. State Department adviser on the Middle East.

The Free Syrian Army distanced itself from the five groups identified by HRW as the main perpetrators, saying it is not cooperating with extremists. “Anyone who commits such crimes will not belong to the revolution anymore,” said spokesman Louay Mikdad.

Human rights groups have said both sides in the civil war, now in its third year, have violated the rules of war, but U.N. investigators have said the scale and intensity of rebel abuses hasn’t reached that of the regime.

The new allegations come at a time when the regime appears to be regaining some international legitimacy because of its seeming cooperation with a program to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile by mid-2014.

Human Rights Watch researcher Lama Fakih said rebel abuses in the Aug. 4-18 Latakia offensive are the “most egregious and widespread” violations by opposition fighters her group has documented in Syria.

“They certainly amount to war crimes” and may even rise to the level of crimes against humanity, said Fakih, who visited the area a month after the attack, with regime permission.

The offensive targeted villages that are home to Alawites, or followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam who form the backbone of Assad’s regime. Alawites are considered heretics by Sunni Muslim extremists among the rebels.

The rebels launched their attacks Aug. 4 at dawn, quickly seizing three regime military posts, Human Rights Watch said. Once those posts fell, no pro-government troops were left in the area and the rebels overran the villages, according to the report.

“Witnesses described waking up to the sound of fighters coming into their villages, the sound of mortar and gunfire, and they frantically tried to leave,” said Fakih, who interviewed more than three dozen villagers, medical staff and officials from both sides.

Some couldn’t run fast enough, witnesses said.

One man from a hamlet near the village of Blouta told Human Rights Watch he escaped with his mother, while black-clad rebels were shooting at them from two directions.

The man said he left his elderly father and 80-year-old blind aunt behind because of their disabilities. After regime forces retook the area, he said he returned home and found his father had been killed in his bed, and his aunt, Nassiba, in her room.

Another man, Hassan Shebli from the village of Barouda, said he fled without his wife, who was unable to walk without crutches, and without their paralyzed 23-year-old son.

When Shebli returned days later, he found his wife and son buried near the house and bullet holes and blood splattered in the bedroom, the New York-based group said.

Human Rights Watch said it compiled a list of 190 civilians killed in the offensive, and that at least 67 of them were killed at close range or while trying to flee. There are signs that most of the others were also killed intentionally or indiscriminately, but more investigation is needed, the group said.

The rebels also seized more than 200 civilians from the villages, most of them women and children, and demanded to trade the hostages for prisoners held by the regime, the group said.

A rebel from Latakia, who goes by the name Mohammed Haffawi, denied rebels killed civilians in the area but said one of the rebel groups was holding about 100 women and children.

The rebel groups that led the offensive were identified in the report as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, both linked to al-Qaeda; Ahrar al-Sham; Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar; and Suqqor al-Izz, which is believed to have many foreign fighters in its ranks, including from North Africa.

Commenting on the news, Ribal Al-Assad, Director of the ODFS said:

“It is abundantly clear that the Free Syrian Army has lost its legitimacy; when they are aligned with Al-Qaeda groups such as the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ and ‘Al-Nusra’ it is impossible to see how they can still fight for a plural, free and democratic Syria.

These extremists want an Islamic state run by Sharia law and they will not stop until they have achieved it – they are actively trying to eradicate swathes of Syrians along sectarian and religious lines and it is time for the international community to put a stop to this genocide.

General Idris himself has said previously that Islamists comprise over half of all opposition forces, whilst he only labels Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra as extremists.

He also said that he is happy to fight alongside Al-Nusra, and has rejected its listing on the U.S’ blacklist.

Things simply don’t add up.

Then again, with the Supreme Military Council of the FSA made up of only Salafi extremist groups, is it any surprise that we have seen hundreds of videos showing the FSA flag flying alongside the black flag of Al-Qaeda?

How many more Syrians have to die at the hands of extremists before something is done?”

General Idris also happily fights alongside groups including the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (affiliated to al Qaeda), ‘Al-Nusra’ (al Queda affiliate whose blacklisting by the US he rejects), Ahrar Al-Sham (Salafi group) and the Mujahedeen Brigade (Al-Qaeda).

Furthermore, he recently joined them during their offensive on Alawite villages in Lattakia where they killed over 200 civilians including a prominent Alawite cleric. This was not a one-off. As I have written elsewhere, they have committed further massacres against Alawites, Kurds and Christians all over Syria, and have lately taken by force the historic and ancient Christian town of Maaloula.

It is becoming impossible to distinguish between the apparently ‘moderate’ FSA and its extremist allies. As I have said, it’s Supreme Military Council exclusively comprises Salafi extremist groups.

For those that still say that it is not clear if the FSA had any role in the offensive, General Idris visited “his forces” while the offensive was taking place and yet it was reported by all Western and Regional media that it was spearheaded by the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (affiliated to al Qaeda), ‘Al-Nusra’ (al Qaeda affiliate whose blacklisting by the US he rejects), Ahrar Al-Sham (Salafi group) and the Mujahedeen Brigade (Al-Qaeda).

The FSA’s involvement in war crimes is clear – two weeks ago, the three largest groups previously fighting under the FSA banner announced the uniting of thirteen Islamist-jihadist groups, including Al-Nusra, calling for an Islamic State in Syria under Sharia Law, and have announced the formation of the ‘Islamist Alliance’ ?

Previously we have highlighted a video showing how one of the main groups of the Supreme Military Council of the FSA is calling on ‘Jihad’ against minority groups with the aim of imposing an Islamic Caliphate State under Sharia Law in Syria and “all the Muslim countries”

How can anyone still doubt the involvement of the FSA in these war crimes?”