NY Times "Correction: September 6, 2013, posted at Legal Insurrection, also noted by Politico:
An article on Thursday about the brutal and ruthless tactics adopted by some rebel groups in Syria misstated the date of a video that showed a band of rebels executing seven captured Syrian soldiers. The video, which was smuggled out of Syria by a former rebel, was made in the spring of 2012, not April 2013."---------------------------------------------------
9/5/13, "Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in West," NY Times, Chivers
 |
| Video from April 2013 |
The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were
trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces
pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter
revolutionary verse.
“For fifty years, they are companions to corruption,” he said. “We swear
to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take
revenge.”
The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as “the Uncle,” fired a
bullet into the back of the first prisoner’s head. His gunmen followed
suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.
This scene, documented in a video smuggled out of Syria a few days ago
by a former rebel who grew disgusted by the killings, offers a dark
insight into how many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and
ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow.....
Across much of Syria, where rebels with Western support live and fight,
areas outside of government influence have evolved into a complex
guerrilla and criminal landscape.
That has raised the prospect that American military action could
inadvertently strengthen Islamic extremists and criminals.
Abdul Samad Issa, 37, the rebel commander leading his fighters through
the executions of the captured soldiers, illustrates that very risk.
Known in northern Syria as “the Uncle” because two of his deputies are
his nephews, Mr. Issa leads a relatively unknown group of fewer than 300
fighters, one of his former aides said. The former aide, who smuggled
the video out of Syria, is not being identified for security reasons....
In Washington on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the
issue of radicalized rebels in an exchange with Representative Michael
McCaul, a Texas Republican. Mr. Kerry insisted, “There is a real
moderate opposition that exists.”
Mr. Kerry said that there were 70,000 to 100,000 “oppositionists.” Of
these, he said, some 15 percent to 20 percent were “bad guys” or
extremists.
Mr. McCaul responded by saying he had been told in briefings that half of the opposition fighters were extremists.
Much of the concern among American officials has focused on two groups
that acknowledge ties to Al Qaeda. These groups — the Nusra Front and
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — have attracted foreign jihadis,
used terrorist tactics and vowed to create a society in Syria ruled by
their severe interpretation of Islamic law....
One of his tactics has been to promise to his
fighters what he calls “the extermination” of Alawites — the minority
Islamic sect to which the Assad family belongs, and which Mr. Issa
blames for Syria’s suffering. This sentiment may have driven Mr. Issa’s decision to execute his
prisoners in the video, his former aide said. The soldiers had been
captured when Mr. Issa’s fighters overran a government checkpoint north
of Idlib in March.
Their cellphones, the former aide said, had videos of soldiers raping Syrian civilians and looting. Mr. Issa declared them all criminals, he said, and a revolutionary trial was held. They were found guilty.
Mr. Issa, the former aide said, then arranged for their execution to be
videotaped in April so he could show his work against Mr. Assad and his
military to donors, and seek more financing.
The video ends abruptly after his fighters dump the soldiers’ broken bodies into a well. One of the participants, a young man wearing a purple fleece jacket, looks into the camera and smiles." via Drudge
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