UN probe: 8 massacres by Syria regime, 1 by rebels

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GENEVA (AP) At least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by President Bashar Assad's regime and supporters and one by rebels over the past year and a half, a U.N. commission said Wednesday.

The commission's probe highlights the worsening pattern of violence against civilians, including executions and hospital bombings, as the government battles to retake lost territory from the rebels, including Islamist foreign fighters who also have carried out war crimes.

"The perpetrators of these violations and crimes, on all sides, act in defiance of international law. They do not fear accountability. Referral to justice is imperative," says the report by the U.N. commission investigating human rights abuses in Syria.

The report updates the commission's work since 2011 to mid-July, stopping short of what the United States says was an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas that killed hundreds of civilians.

Calling Syria a battlefield where armed forces are getting away with large-scale murder, the commission said that in each of the incidents since April 2012 "the intentional mass killing and identity of the perpetrator were confirmed to the commission's evidentiary standards."

The commission's four independent experts also note that they are probing nine more suspected mass killings since March. In those, it said, the illegal killing has been confirmed but the perpetrator cannot yet be identified. In other cases, it said, the circumstances of the killing were not sufficiently clear to be able to determine the legality.

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The allegations of chemical weapons use received have been "predominantly by government forces," said the commission, but it has not yet been able to determine whether they were used. The commission is expected to eventually weigh in on who bears responsibility, after a separate team of U.N. chemical inspectors reports on any evidence of the use of chemical weapons. That report will not apportion blame.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-world/20130911/EU-UN-Syria-Rights/