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Syria War 2013 – Syrian Rebel Fighters Capture Assad & Hezbollah Forces
(Warning Graphic Footage 18+)
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is the main armed opposition in Syria. Its formation was announced in late July 2011 by a group of defecting Syrian Army officers. In a video, the men called upon Syrian soldiers and officers to defect to their ranks, and said the purpose of the Free Syrian Army was to defend civilian protesters from violence by the state. Many Syrian soldiers subsequently deserted to join the FSA. The actual number of soldiers who defected to the FSA is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 1,000 to over 25,000 by December 2011. The FSA functions more as an umbrella organization than a traditional military chain of command, and is “headquartered” in Turkey. As such, it cannot issue direct orders to its various bands of fighters, but many of the most effective armed groups are fighting under the FSA’s banner.
Since the beginning of the uprising in 2011, both the Free Syrian Army and broader opposition groups have committed human rights violations, according to reports. The UN has accused them of human rights abuses including unlawful killing, torture, kidnapping, and the use of children in dangerous non-combat roles.:4–5 For example, a video documented a boy — between 12 and 14 years old — executing a prisoner by cutting his throat with a machete. Human Rights Watch also reports evidence of rebels kidnapping civilians for ransom, as well as summary executions of army soldiers and numerous cases of torture.
The opposition came under criticism after a video was uploaded to YouTube of an opposition soldier eating the heart of a dead Syrian army soldier. The perpetrator called his act a revenge for abuse of civilians, which was allegedly recorded on the dead soldier’s cell phone. A Syrian government official claimed that hundreds of cannibalistic acts by opposition forces had been documented, but did not provide any evidence.
Jihadist groups are accused of violence against civilians who do not follow Sunni Islam. Christians report religious cleansing of their neighborhoods in Homs and Qsair as well as rapes and kidnappings for ransom. Through the fighting, Islamist groups such as fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria have lost support from international powers and Syrian citizens, reportedly over a “spate of abuse”.
Estimates of deaths in the conflict vary widely, with figures, per opposition activist groups, ranging from 80,350 and 106,425. On 2 January 2013, the United Nations stated that 60,000 had been killed since the civil war began, with High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay saying “The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking.” Four months later, the ‘s updated figure for the death toll had reached 80,000.[35] On 13 June the UN released an updated figure of people killed since fighting began, the figure being exactly 92,901, for up to the end of April 2013. Navi Pillay, UN high commissioner for human rights, stated that: “This is most likely a minimum casualty figure.” The real toll was guessed to be over 100,000. Some areas of the country have been affected disproportionately by the war; by some estimates, as many as a third of all deaths have occurred in the city of Homs.
One problem has been determining the number of “armed combatants” who have died, due to some sources counting rebel fighters who were not government defectors as civilians. At least half of those killed have been estimated to be combatants from both sides, including more than 15,300 government soldiers. In addition, UNICEF reported that over 500 children had been killed by early February 2012, and another 400 children have been reportedly arrested and tortured in Syrian prisons; both of these claims have been contested by the Syrian government. Additionally, over 600 detainees and political prisoners are known to have died under torture. In mid-October 2012, the opposition activist group SOHR reported the number of children killed in the conflict had risen to 2,300, and in March 2013, opposition sources stated that over 5,000 children had been killed. SOHR’s methodology for counting civilian victims has been questioned, as the organisation includes opposition combatants among the number of civilian casualties, as long as these are not former members of the military.