Syria: Assad’s forces accused of war crimes by UN panel

They said rebels had also committed war crimes but their violations “did not reach the gravity, frequency and scale” of those by state forces and the pro-Assad shabbiha militia.

“The commission found reasonable grounds to believe that government forces and the shabbiha had committed the crimes against humanity of murder and of torture, war crimes and gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including unlawful killing, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual violence, indiscriminate attack, pillaging and destruction of property,” said the 102-page report.

It was produced by a team of independent investigators led by the Brazilian diplomat, Professor Paulo Pinheiro.

The panel appointed by the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council blamed the Damascus regime and allied militia for killing more than 100 civilians in the village of Houla in May, nearly half of them children. It said the murders, unlawful killing, torture, sexual violence and indiscriminate attacks “indicate the involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces and the government”.

It is the first time the panel has used the term “war crimes” to describe its findings in relation to Syria. That is because the International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversees the Geneva Conventions, considered the rules of modern warfare, only said in mid-July that it now considered the conflict in Syria to be a full-blown civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies to the conflict.

The panel conducted 1,062 interviews, but emphasised it had been unable to fully carry out its UN mandate as Syria hampered the investigation.

Residents in the northern border town of Azaz yesterday screamed and shouted “God is greatest” as they carried bloodied bodies from collapsed concrete buildings, video posted by activists showed.

The opposition British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens had been killed. One doctor in the town said at least 30 people had been killed, 150 injured, and that rescuers were searching for more.Video footage, which could not be verified, showed crowds of residents wrestling with steel bars and pulling away a giant slab of concrete to reveal the dust-covered arm of a child.

“This is a real catastrophe,” said an activist who gave his name only as Anwar. “An entire street was destroyed.”

Mr Assad’s forces have increasingly used helicopter gunships and warplanes against the lightly-armed insurgents.

In the Syrian capital, Damascus, a bomb exploded in the car park of a hotel used by UN monitors, but several military buildings are also in the vicinity and it was not clear what the target was. Deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad said the bomb blast proved “the criminal and barbaric nature of those who carry out these attacks –and their backers in Syria and abroad”.

The UN Human Rights Council could now renew the mandate of the panel or it could appoint Prof Pinheiro to become a special investigator for Syria, a position that the council created in March but has left unfilled until now.

Earlier this year, the council said in a resolution that it agreed with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in her call for action by the International Criminal Court based at The Hague.

Activists claim more than 20,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria’s revolt, inspired by other Arab Spring uprisings against autocratic regimes in the region.

The conflict has slowly changed into a full-blown civil war that the panel said involves “more brutal tactics and new military capabilities on both sides”.

Last month Mr Assad’s troops successfully counter-attacked after rebels seized parts of Damascus. They are still trying to dislodge insurgents from Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city.

A Syrian air strike has wrecked a hospital in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, a doctor there said yesterday, an attack that US-based Human Rights Watch said violated international law. At least two holes gaped in the walls of Al Shifaa Hospital and four floors were heavily damaged by Tuesday’s raid.

“If we had lingered just another five minutes, we would have died,” said the surgeon, who gave his name only as Younes.

Dust covered hospital beds, incubators were broken and the floor was strewn with rubble. Water from a broken tank had leaked out, mixing with patches of blood.

More than 50 people were killed across Syria yesterday, the Syrian Observatory said, and 160 the day before.

Syrian state media said UN emergency relief co-ordinator Valerie Amos met foreign minister Walid al-Moualem in Damascus to discuss the growing needs of civilians affected by the “destruction of private and state property by terrorist armed groups” – the regime’s usual term for rebels.

The bloodshed has divided regional and world powers, foiling peace efforts and paralysing the UN Security Council, as Russia and China have vetoed any attempt to adopt a more robust stance stance towards Mr Assad.

Russia yesterday again accused the West of reneging on an agreement to establish a transitional government in Syria and of prolonging the bloodshed by encouraging the rebels fighting to topple Mr Assad.

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said an agreement made by world powers and the then-peace envoy Kofi Annan in Geneva on 30 June was still valid and urged the West to do more to put it into practice.

“We remain convinced that what was achieved in Geneva should not be sabotaged. We will be demanding in the next few days a clear answer from our partners on whether they confirm what they signed in Geneva,” Mr Lavrov said.

“And if so, then why don’t they take any measures to execute that plan?” he told a news conference in the Belarus capital, Minsk.

The Geneva deal did not specify what role, if any, Mr Assad should have in a transitional administration that would seek to end the violence in an uprising that began in March 2011.

Since Geneva, fighting has intensified and Mr Annan has resigned, his peace plan in tatters.

Syria’s own Sunni majority is the dynamo of the revolt against Mr Assad, whose Shiite-rooted Alawite minority is at the core of a ruling system based on the army and security services.

Syria has been caught up in a sectarian-tinged regional tussle pitting Shiite Iran against Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-ruled Gulf allies. Turkey has also turned against Mr Assad. Iran is eager to prop up Mr Assad, who has provided support for its Shiite ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.