generalspeaking

 Equal Opportunity Atrocities

"While exact numbers are difficult to verify, reliable eyewitness testimony that we have gathered suggests that many civilians and fighters in the custody of extremist armed opposition groups have been executed since the beginning of this year."
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

A succession of mass executions of civilians and fighters who were no longer participating in hostilities in Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa by hard line armed opposition groups in Syria, in particular by the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, appears to be a reality that Ms. Pillay particularly deplores and warns may lead to charges of war crimes. On previous occasions the high commissioner has charged the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad with similar accusations.

Certainly, when it comes to heedlessly targeting rebel factions in rebel-held areas, the regime has no peer in destroying the homes and the lives of Syrian Sunni civilians. Thousands of Syrians have died from Syrian military attacks under the pretense that they support the presence of the Syrian Free Army insurgents and their fate is intertwined thanks to the disposability of Sunni women and children, innocent of anything but hoping to get on with their lives at some future date.

The news of fierce infighting between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, an al-Qaeda affiliate and others, including the Al Nusrah Front has without doubt given new hope to the regime. Claims have been made that over a thousand people have been killed in clashes between those rival Islamist groups in a two-week period in January in northern and eastern Syria.

Some 130 civilians are included in that number; 312 ISIS jihadis and 608 fighters from what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights names "the Islamist and non-Islamist rebel battalions".


It is the presence of ISIS that has gathered the other Islamists in rage over its intransigence and its attacks on other Islamist commanders. In that sense, certainly, it can be said that ISIS has greatly worked in favour of the regime, by default, in any event. The more infighting that occurs, the less attention is given to the collective effort to fight the regime and remove Bashar al-Assad from power.

Which doesn't appear all that likely in the context of Syria's foreign minister accompanying Iran's to Moscow for a tete a tete with Vladimir Putin a few days earlier.

Syrian army soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad walk with their weapons in the Aleppo town of Naqareen on Tuesday. Reuters

And an invitation to Iran to attend the Geneva meeting alongside Syria meant to hash out a potential for ending the civil war, seemingly without the inclusive presence of the Syrian opposition which demands alongside U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that President al-Assad be prepared to step down from the presidency.

With Russia and Iran supporting the continued presence of Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria it doesn't appear too likely the rebels' demands will be met. And as such the violence will continue.

Labels: Conflict, Iran, Islamists, Negotiations, Russia, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 18, 2014