Tentera Pembebasan Syria Dicap 'Penjenayah Perang'

Syrian rebels branded 'war criminals' over video 'that shows them executing government soldiers'

• Ten government soldiers shown begging for their lives before being shot
• Amnesty International brands unconfirmed footage 'shocking'
• Assad forces launch intensive air strikes in response to rebel gains
• 28 soldiers killed at army checkpoints on road from Damascus to Aleppo
• An estimated 36,000 killed since the uprising broke out in March 2011 

By DANIEL MILLER

The Free Syrian Army has been accused of war crimes after video emerged appearing to show a group of rebels executing around 10 captured government soldiers.

The disturbing clip, which has been branded 'shocking' by human rights group Amnesty International, shows the captured soldiers, some of whom appear wounded, being heaped together on the ground. 

They are heard pleading for their lives as they are taunted and kicked by the rebel troops who then step back and open fire.

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Executions: Disturbing video footage has appeared on YouTube 

appearing to show Syrian rebels executing 
a group of government soldiers

Rebels are heard calling them 'Assad's Dogs', before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

One rebel soldier is heard telling a prisoner: 'Do you not know that we belong to the people of this country?'

The soldier replies: 'I swear in the name of God I did not fire.'

Amnesty International's Ann Harrison said in a statement: '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.'

A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was examining the video. 

'The allegations are that these were soldiers who were no longer combatants and therefore, at this point, it looks very like a war crime. Another one,' the spokesman, Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva.

Final moments: The soldiers are shown heaped together on the ground, 

begging for their lives before their captors step back and open fire

War crimes: The captured soldiers are heard pleading for their lives

 before being stamped on. Human rights group Amnesty International 

described the footage as 'shocking'

'Unfortunately this could be the latest in a string of documented summary executions by opposition factions as well as by government forces and groups affiliated with them, such as the (pro-government) shabiha militia.

'The people committing these crimes should be under no illusion that they will escape accountability, because there is a lot of accumulated evidence, perhaps including this video,' he said. 

The executed soldiers are believed to be among at least 153 people killed nationwide on Thursday including 72 soldiers, 43 civilians and 38 rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria's commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. 

Atrocity: A rebel soldier is seen talking to the camera before the executions begin

Five rebels were killed in the fighting near the city of Saraqeb in the northwest, now a key battleground after rebels seized the town of Maaret al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo road last month.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces launched intensive air strikes this week which analysts say are a response to opposition gains and aimed at 'terrorizing' local communities.

Riad Kahwaji, head of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis said:'They are trying to make the civilian population so angry and so scared that it will not be possible for the rebels to find safe havens.'

On Thursday helicopter gunships attacked a district of Damascus as warplanes pounded rebel bastions in the capital's suburbs and in Edleb, the Observatory said.

At least three air raids hit the northern Damascus suburb of Harasta, home to some of the rebel Free Syrian Army's best organized fighters, as on the other side of the city gunships attacked the Al-Hajar al-Aswad district.

Clashes also raged in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, the Observatory said, and elsewhere in Edleb, where FSA forces backed by the Islamist Al-Nusra Front continued their siege of the Wadi Deif army base.

Free Syrian Army fighters prepare to burst out of cover and open fire 

at the enemy in Aleppo, Syria

A child is carried to a frontline hospital to receive treatment in Aleppo. 

President Assad's forces launched intensive air strikes this week 

which analysts say are a response to opposition gains

A Free Syrian Army fighter takes aim behind a wall of sandbags 

as fighting continues to rage in Aleppo

Free Syrian Army fighters wait, their weapons at the ready, 

during continued fighting in the flashpoint city of Aleppo

The Observatory says more than 36,000 people have now been killed since the uprising broke out in March 2011 and evolved into an armed civil conflict.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Wednesday against efforts by Islamic extremists to 'hijack' the revolution, but the opposition SNC head said the lack of an international response to the conflict was to blame.

'The international community is responsible, through its lack of support for the Syrian people, for the growth of extremism in Syria,' its director Abdel Basset Sayda told AFP.

Two older members of the Free Syrian Army chat during 
a cigarette breakin the village of El Marge 
on the road to Aleppo

Rubble: Ruined buildings damaged in what activists claim were 

a series of airstrikes by the Syrian Air Force in Douma near Damascus

Wreckage: Buildings destroyed in Saif Al Dawla near Aleppo, Syria

Deep divisions over how to deal with Assad – China and Russia have repeatedly used their UN Security Council vetoes to block resolutions aimed at putting more pressure on the Syrian leader – have stymied international efforts to address the conflict.

But China said Thursday it had made 'constructive new suggestions' to end the bloodshed, including a phased region-by-region ceasefire and the formation of a transitional government.

In an apparent attempt to position China at the heart of efforts to solve the issue, the foreign ministry gave a detailed account of proposals it made to Brahimi during his visit this week.

'China's position on the Syrian issue is consistent. The new proposal is an extension of China's efforts to push forward a political resolution of the Syrian issue,' ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told a regular briefing.

Brahimi, who visited Moscow and Beijing this week in a bid to revive peace efforts after a failed ceasefire during last weekend's Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, is due to present new proposals for resolving the conflict to the Security Council later this month.