Syrian rebel Khalid al-Hamad defends gruesome video as revenge.

Syrian rebel Khalid al-Hamad defends gruesome video as revenge.(AA).A Syrian rebel who was filmed apparently cutting out and eating the organs of a soldier has defended his actions as revenge for regime atrocities, Time magazine reported on Tuesday.

The U.S. news weekly said it had talked by Skype with the fighter, identified as Khalid al-Hamad, who appeared in a video that sparked outrage and condemnation, including from the Syrian opposition.

Hamad claimed he was driven to the gruesome acts by footage on the dead soldier’s cellphone, showing him “humiliating” a naked woman and her two daughters.

The magazine said Hamad described participating in another acts of mutilating regime forces, including militiamen known as shabiha. “I have another video clip... In the clip I am sawing another shabiha with a saw. The saw we use to cut trees. I sawed him in small pieces and large ones,” Time quoted him as saying.

The magazine said Hamad, a Sunni like much of the opposition fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, expressed hatred of member’s of the leader’s Alawite sect.

He also insisted that the rebel, identified as Hamad, had been “previously ejected” from his unit “because of his history of brutality.”

“Hopefully we will slaughter all of them,” he told the magazine, “They were the ones who killed our children in Baba Amr and raped our women,” he said, referring to a neighborhood of the central city of Homs.

“We didn’t start it, they started it,” he added. “Our slogan is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

The video, in which Hamad leans over a uniformed body, cuts out organs and then holds one up to his mouth, has prompted both outrage and condemnation.

The United States on Tuesday denounced the actions of a Syrian rebel filmed cutting out and eating the organs of a dead soldier, but insisted it was the act of a lone brutal individual. “We’re appalled by this video, and we’ve been very clear that all sides in this conflict must abide by international humanitarian law,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. Washington had “raised this gruesome act in our recent conversations with leaders of the Supreme Military Council, who assured us that they do not support such actions and that this is not representative of the vast majority of the armed opposition,” he added.

The National Coalition, the country’s main political opposition grouping, issued a statement saying it “strongly condemns” the act. “The Coalition stresses that such an act contradicts the morals of the Syrian people, as well as the values and principles of the Free Syrian Army,” it said. “The Syrian Coalition reiterates its condemnation of such an act and stresses that it is a crime, regardless of the perpetrator. “The culprit will eventually be tried in court in front of an honest and fair judiciary.”

Human Rights Watch said condemnation alone was not sufficient. “It is not enough for Syria’s opposition to condemn such behavior or blame it on violence by the government,” said Nadim Houry, Middle East deputy director at the New York-based watchdog.“The opposition forces need to act firmly to stop such abuses.”Read the full story here.

More here: Syrian rebel atrocity video: No apology for ‘revenge’, more clips promised

Video - Syrian opposition “Independent Omar al-Farouq” brigade commander mutilating Syrian soldiers corpse, bites Liver.

Video - Syrian opposition “Independent Omar al-Farouq” brigade commander mutilating Syrian soldiers corpse, bites Liver.HT: HumanrightsWatch.
Human Rights Watch has reviewed graphic evidence that appears to show a commander of the Syrian opposition “Independent Omar al-Farouq” brigade mutilating the corpse of a pro-government fighter. The figure in the video cuts the heart and liver out of the body and uses sectarian language to insult Alawites. The same brigade was implicated in April 2013 in the cross-border indiscriminate shelling of the Lebanese Shi’a villages of al-Qasr and Hawsh al-Sayyed.

It is not known whether the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade operates within the command structure of the Free Syrian Army. But the opposition Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army leadership should take all possible steps to hold those responsible for war crimes accountable and prevent such abuses by anyone under their command. Any party with the power to do so should do all it can to keep weapons from reaching the brigade. Human Rights Watch repeated its call to the United Nations Security Council to refer the Syria situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure accountability for all war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“One important way to stop Syria’s daily horrors, from beheadings to mutilations to executions, is to strip all sides from their sense of impunity,” said Nadim Houry, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “These atrocities are shocking but so is the obstruction of some Security Council members that still do not support an ICC referral for all sides.”

In the video obtained by Human Rights Watch, a man identified by the person filming the incident as Abu Sakkar is filmed cutting the chest of a dead uniformed fighter, and removing the heart and liver from the corpse. The person filming the incident then comments, while “Abu Sakkar” is cutting out the corpse’s liver: “God Bless you, Abu Sakkar, you look like you are drawing [carving] a heart of love on him.” After Abu Sakkar completes the cutting out of the corpse’s heart and liver, he is filmed holding the heart and liver in his hands and speaks into the camera:

I swear to God, soldiers of Bashar, you dogs – we will eat your heart and livers! Takbir! God is Great! Oh my heroes of Baba Amr, you slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them!

At the end of the video, after that statement, the man called Abu Sakkar is filmed putting the corpse’s heart into his mouth, as if he is taking a bite out of it. Because of the extremely graphic and disturbing nature of the video, Human Rights Watch has decided not to publicly release the footage, although an edited and blurred version is available on the internet.

By comparing frames of the mutilation video to other videos showing what appears to be the same man participating in the shelling that indiscriminately hit Lebanese Shi’a villages and talking about killed Hezbollah fighters, Human Rights Watch believes the person in the video to be Commander Abu Sakkar. Journalists and other commanders have said that Abu Sakkar is the nom de guerre of a former commander from the mainstream al-Farouq Brigade from the Baba Amr district of Homs, in Syria.

Four international journalists told Human Rights Watch that they met him during or after the battle of Homs in 2011 and 2012. Several other videos posted by the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade also show the man known as Abu Sakkar, wearing the same jacket as in the mutilation video, loading rockets into an improvised rocket launcher before apparently firing them into Lebanon at Shi’a villages in the Bekaa Valley. In yet another video, Abu Sakkar appears with what he claims are the bodies of killed Hezbollah fighters in the town of al-Qusayr.

The laws of war prohibit any mutilation of dead bodies. As set out by the International Committee of the Red Cross’s study of customary international humanitarian law, this rule requires that “each party to the conflict must take all possible measures to prevent the dead from being despoiled.” Under the Rome Statute of the ICC, “outrage upon personal dignity” is a war crime, which includes humiliating, degrading, or otherwise violating the dignity of a dead body.

When asked about the video, Maj. Gen. Salim Idriss, Chief of Staff for the Supreme Military Council of the opposition, told TIME Magazine that “such violence is unacceptable, and no soldier under the council’s command would be allowed to get away with such actions.” However, opposition forces have not set up proper accountability mechanisms for abuses committed by their members.

“It is not enough for Syria’s opposition to condemn such behavior or blame it on violence by the government,” Houry said. “The opposition forces need to act firmly to stop such abuses.”Hmmmm......Reminds me of the lynching of two Israeli soldiers who strayed into the wrong part of Ramallah, the 'Palestinians' tore them limb from limb and paraded around with their entrails.Read the full story here.