Report warns of Syrian rebels’ reign of terror
A19-year-old activist from northern Syria tells of abduction by a rebel group, being beaten with fists and wooden sticks, tortured and hung from chains for five days.
An ailing 61-year-old woman from Aleppo is kidnapped and “disappeared” by militants at a checkpoint and her relatives are denied any information on her whereabouts.
An Aleppo journalist said he was detained, tortured and forbidden to write on non-Islamic issues, after accusations of working for a media channel that opposes Al Qaeda.
Although Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) gets most of the world’s attention for its atrocities in Syria — and its ambition to create a sweeping Middle Eastern caliphate — it is not the only brutal militant group that threatens civilians in a country that has fractured along ethnic and religious lines.
A report released Monday by Amnesty International warns that other armed groups, some supported by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the U.S., are also imposing a regime of repression on civilians.
“The situation in the governorates of Aleppo and Idlib is an informative case study of what happens when armed opposition groups gain territorial control and set up quasijudicial institutions,” it said.
“Armed groups have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including abductions, torture and summary killings. To date, justice for the hundreds of thousands of victims (in Syria) remains as elusive, as neither the Syrian government nor armed groups have been held accountable for their crimes.”
Although one group, Ahrar alSham, said it would discuss the allegations with Amnesty, “none has provided answers to the specific allegations about their practices or the detention centres they run.”
For civilians in Aleppo and Idlib, in northwest Syria, life became perilous after the government of Bashar Assad violently put down protests in 2012.
Groups took up arms and gained control of the main cities and surrounding areas, setting up their own religious and administrative institutions.
They have also merged, split off and regrouped, making it difficult for residents as well as outsiders to track who is in control.
Civilians caught between warring groups and Assad’s death-dealing assaults “live in constant fear of being abducted if they criticize the conduct of armed groups in power or fail to abide by the strict rules that some have imposed,” said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program.
He called on members of the International Syria Support Group — including the U.S., Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia — which are involved in negotiations, to pressure armed groups to “end such abuses and comply with the laws of war.”
He added that they must “cease any transfer of arms or other support to groups implicated in committing war crimes and other gross violations.”
Few, if any, groups fighting in Syria are exempt from such charges. In interviews with 47 former residents of Idlib and Aleppo, Amnesty investigators were told of summary executions, torture, women sentenced to death for adultery, abduction of human rights activists, minorities targeted for their religion, children detained and beaten, lawyers, journalists and media activists attacked or threatened.
Some of the groups set up pseudo-government institutions, such as courts, police stations and jails, and imposed strict Sharia law without due process.
In Aleppo, some 31 groups formed the Aleppo Conquest coalition, including three main armed groups.
The al-Shamia Front was created in late 2014 by the al-Tawhid Brigade, which began as a moderate Islamist group, but joined with the jihadist al-Nusra Front, linked with Al Qaeda and designated as a terrorist group.
It governs parts of Aleppo city and controls the Bab al-Salam border crossing with Turkey.
The Nour al-Dine Zinki Movement was formed in late 2011 in Aleppo by Toufic Shehab al-Dine. An independent fighting group, it has changed alliances several times but is considered moderate and was reportedly supplied by military aid from the U.S.
Division 16 of the Free Syrian Army was formed from three separate armed groups in 2013 and has contact with U.S. military advisers. Its commander, Col. Hassan Rajoub, said he obtains weapons across the border in Turkey, though it is not clear from whom. The group controls several neighbourhoods of Aleppo city. In Idlib, at least six armed groups make up the Army of Conquest coalition.
Jabhat al-Nusra, created by Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2012, was named as a branch of Al Qaeda by former chief Ayman alZawahiri. It’s responsible for suicide bombings in Damascus and has reportedly been joined by some of the most seasoned anti-government fighters, including defectors from the Free Syrian Army.
Ahrar al-Sham is led by Abu Yahya al-Hamawi, an engineer and former Syrian political prisoner. The group aims to overthrow Assad and create an Islamic state, but casts itself as moderate and has signed on to a prospective peace agreement on grounds that Assad would give up power. However, it withdrew from Saudi-led peace talks in 2015.
As the war continues, civilians are increasingly vulnerable.
“I was happy to be free from the Syrian government’s unjust rule, but now the situation is worse,” said a lawyer from Idlib who was abducted in November 2015 for criticizing Jabhat al-Nusra.