The following videos were posted online today from the city of Raqqa, which has been under the control of Jihadist Syrian opposition groups for the past several weeks (Graphic)
The videos show the execution of three men described as Assad army officers, knelt in the middle of a public square, in front of a the Islamic black standard used by the Islamic State of Iraq. A speech is given to the gathered crowd, stating the execution is in retaliation for the massacres of Sunnis in Banias, Homs, and other areas, and singles out Assadists and Alawites in particular. The full speech translated into English can be read here.
But what's even more alarming about this video is the statement isn't made in the name of Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, or any other well known Jihadists groups in Syria like you might expect, but The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is Jihadist group announced by the leader of the The Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, made up of the al-Qaeda tied Islamic State of Iraq, and Jabhat al-Nusra, reported here:
Al-Qaeda in Iraq – released a recorded audio message by its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in which he announced that the Syria jihadi group Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN) has been merely an extension of ISI in Syria. Al-Baghdadi confirms that Jabhat Al-Nusra has been receiving monthly funds from ISI. In this vein, Al-Baghdadi announces that the names ISI and JN are not to be used anymore; instead, he declares the official merging of the two groups under the name "Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham."
Although videos have been posted from groups claiming to be part of The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham as far as I'm aware this is the first time that a statement like this has been made by The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham inside Syria. It seems to be a very significant event, almost a coming out party for the organisation in Syria, and executing three men for alleged crimes they had no direct hand in seems to be making a statement of intent.
Frequently during the Syrian conflict there's been videos that claim to show either side committing some sort of war crimes or atrocity. As a general rule I avoid writing about these videos because there's always claims about fakery, a lack of detail beyond what's shown in the video, and so on.
However, a video has been posted today on pro-Assad channels which presents a rare occasion where it's possible gather much more information about the person involved.
The following video shows a man cutting a chuck of flesh, possible an organ, from a corpse, then biting down onto the chunk of flesh at the end of the video (GRAPHIC)
I've had the audio translated (thanks to @Syrian_scenes), rather than relying on the subtitles attached to the video
I swear by God, we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog! Takbeer! Heroes of Baba 'Amr, [inaudible] cut out their hearts to eat them!
As I said before, generally I can't do much with these videos, but in this example I instantly recognised the man wearing that distinctive jacket as appearing in other videos produced by the Independent Omar Farouk Brigades, based around Homs
In the first video he gives a short speech, which I've translated, and also allows us to match the voices in both videos to the same person
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate: The Umar al-Faruq Battalion is striking the strongholds of the Shabbiha and the Assadist Army in the village of Abel. Takbeer!
Peter N. Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch has been able to confirm the name of the man in the videos as Abu Sakkar of Baba Amro, Homs, also known as Khaled Al Hamad, a former senior figure in Al Farouq Brigade.
It's unclear how the Independent Omar Farouk Brigades is related to the Free Syrian Army, whether or not it works inside the command structure (as it is), or considers itself independent, but it does raise the question that when people are identified in videos like this what can anyone actually do about it during the conflict?
Today I was made aware of this video posted on the pro-opposition news24deiralzour Youtube channel, apparently showing a man being executed titled "execution of a Shabih who tampered with the Quran and likened Bashar to Allah almighty"
Having searched for earlier versions of this video it appears it was first posted on the KatibatAhfadAlrasool Harem Youtube channel, titled "one of Assad's dogs executed in Harem". Harem is a small town in the Idlib region, located here, and the Ahfad al-Rasul [Grandchildren of the Prophet] brigade are believed to be a Jihadist/Salafist brigade operating outside of the FSA, who have been previously been involved with attacks on the Syrian military and security apparatus, including bombings in Damascus in co-operation with the Jihadist/Salafist group Ansar al-Islam
According to the description on the video, and discussion on various pro-opposition forums (for example here) the executed man was a officer in the Syrian Army (variously described as a sergeant major, sergeant, and lieutenant) who was apparently executed for writing pro-Assad slogans that transposed the word "God" with "Assad", which distorted a Koranic verse, committing heresy.
One translator I spoke to said he believed at one point in the video one of the men says "this is the dog who wrote [what sounds like] 'it all belongs to Bashar al-Assad'", and believes it might relate to a popular Jihadist verse "fight them until there is no more strife in the land, and faith belongs entirely to God", with "God" being replaced with "Assad". As of yet it's unclear if any other circumstances surround the execution, but it may relate to this video posted on the same day showing a large number of men arrested by Ahfad al-Rasul in the same region
Update December 31st Something else pointed out to me is that at the end of the video someone says "whoever shot from here, you hit the boy, whoever shot from here, you shot the boy, look!", and a poster on this forum berates the execution, stating a man nearby was shot accidentally during the execution.
As reported by Sky News footage has emerged showing a violent execution of alleged shabiha in Aleppo.
Allegedly Liwaa Attawhid, Aleppo's Unification Brigade, were responsible for the killing, and I've spoken to a number of activists to gather more information on the situation surrounding the executions.
According to activists, the men killed belonged to the Berri clan, a notorious Aleppo based shabiha, with some estimating the clan has around 5000 members. Activists allege the Berri clan were involved in various criminal activities, including drug dealing and arms dealing, as well as being used as militia by the Assad government, a role in which they are accused of rape, torture and murder. One of the men killed was the leader of the Berri clan, Zaino Berri, and his brother, Hussein Berri, is reportedly a member of the Syrian Parliament.
According to reports from activists the FSA captured the Berri clan's HQ in Al Neirab (the same location where a police station was captured today) after a fierce gun battle that left several FSA members dead, leading to the capture of Zaino Berri and other members of his clan, among other prisoners
This video in Arabic was recently posted showing the commander in charge of Berri explaining the circumstances of the execution
Update August 1st The Guardian Middle East Live Blog has some additional information about the events surrounding the execution, including this quote
Today, the Barris killed one of the rebels in Al Marjah district. The FSA then entered the Barri's stronghold. They captured the clan’s leaders. They killed some of those who resisted, families and children were allowed to leave the neighbourhood.
I am sure that everyone in Aleppo, be pro-regime, anti-regime or those in the middle, are happy today with their demise.
Update August 1st The Angry Arab blog also has a piece on the execution, with details of the religious affiliation of the Berri clan, details of their activity, and the reason for the execution.
Update August 1st Ivan Watson of CNN Tweeted the following
Spokesman for rebel Tawheed brigade claims responsibility for execution of 10 suspected members of Berri Shabiha yesterday in Aleppo
Regarding the video of the shabiha killed by the FSA, as far as I know these shabiha are from the "Berri" clan in Aleppo. They have a long history of being pro-regime shabiha and they have been involved in a lot of killing in Aleppo.
The regime used to provide them with light weapons and knives and gather them in schools to go and launch their attacks against civilians. Just before they left one of the schools they were caught by the FSA and killed.
In this war in which we left alone to fight such a vicious regime, everything is possible and legitimate and as long as the international community keeps looking at Syria in such carelessness, you will see more of that and even worse.
Update August 1st The Guardian has spoklen to Basheer al-Haji, "media speaker of the Tawheed ("Unity") Brigade in Aleppo"
We were in a truce with the Berri clan, which are shabiha clan. We asked them to stay at home and not to support any part of the fight but they did not comply to the truce.
We were attacking one of the police stations in the city and Berri clan began shooting against us from behind. They killed 15 members of the FSA. We were in big clashes with them and were able to kill 20 of them and arrest another 50.
Then we held a field trial for them. We have judges and lawyers who are in the opposition. They found that seven of the Berri clan were involved in killing and they decided to execute them. Others are kept for trial after the collapse of the regime.
We are keeping a lot of prisoners for trial after the collapse of the regime as long as their hands are clean of the Syrian people's blood, otherwise we kill them immediately.
Chiefs of Baggara, Berri & other pro Assad Tribes in Aleppo met this morning and announce arming themselves for vengeance.
I'm being told that among the tribes that net are Hasasne & Zeido. Together with Baggara & Berry, they have no less than 20k fighters.
I think Aleppo is going to witness a major war: FSA against Assad Forces & Arab tribes who want retribution for death of Zaido Berri.
Update August 1st This video was Tweeted by J. David Goodman appearing to show the FSA inside Zaino Berri's home
Update August 1st J. David Goodman has put together a post on the New York Times covering the reaction to the execution and the story behind it. The Syrian also has an article on the execution in Arabic.
The bomb in this video seems to have the same markings and same damage to it as the bomb in the earlier video. It's appears the locals moved the bomb casing and bomblets to another location (which is extremely dangerous and really not recommended) so they could film the bomb in a better light. This really only provides more evidence that one bomb has possibly been used so far. It's interesting to note that according to Janes this bomb should contain 150 bomblets of the type displayed, yet it appears around 20 were recovered, with fragments of some at the top of the frame near the start of the video. It may indicate that the remaining bomblets did detonate.
Aside from the above video there's been a great deal of discussion about the earlier video, with CJ Chivers writing a very informative post on his blog looking at the reports on the the cluster bombs in Syria, and why it's important if they are being used.
There was also another video posted that claimed to be a cluster bomb deployed in Daraa, and this post examines one of the main reason that I and other believe the explosions in the video are more likely caused by a volley of rockets.Update And just as I post this another video emerges (translationvia DamascusTribune)
Update Another video has been posted Update This exclusive witness report of the Treimsa massacre from NOW Lebanon appears to describe cluster style munitions
It was the first time we see helicopters of the like, they were really big and looked like Apaches. They would fire rockets that were capable of setting rocks on fire. They were throwing bombs which would divide into another 20 as it hit the ground. There were around five planes flying over us, they killed 10 families near the Assi river bank, they were all burnt to death, among which were 18 women and 15 children
UpdateJuly 14th CJ Chivers has written an excellent article with details of the Syrian air force from a defected Syrian pilot, with these interesting details relating to OFABs and cluster bombs
The aircraft are also well armed. He said his squadron was regularly equipped with S-5 rocket pods and trained to drop OFAB unguided bombs and RBK cluster-munitions canisters. By the time he defected in June, he said, pilots were routinely firing S-5 rockets and sometimes dropping OFABs, but he was not aware of any cluster-munitions use yet.
There were reports last week of cluster munitions being used by Syrian helicopters; the reports, while gaining credibility, have not been independently verified.
Following on from my earlier post on OFAB 250-270 High Explosive Bombs being deployed in Syria a pair of new videos have been posted online showing a new type of bomb (thanks to HamaEcho). Both videos were filmed at the same location in the Jabal Shehshebo region in the Hama countryside, the same area as the first OFAB 250-270 videos were filmed.
The video shows around 15 bomblets marked with A-IX-2, a Russian explosive used in military shells. This would imply the shells are loaded with explosives, but have failed to detonate. A poster on Something Awful pointed out that they appear to be AO-1 SCH bomblets (image), and are submunitions in a number of bombs. The next videos show the likely delivery device
Bjørn H Jespersen, of the excellent .processing blog put together a quick sketch of the weapon based on the above video
It is believed that the RBK-250-275 was originally designed to carry fragmentation bomblets designated AO-2.5. However, later versions carried 150 AO-1 SCh fragmentation bomblets, or 30 PTAB-2.5 anti-armour bomblets. The designation letters AO stand for aviatsionnaya oskolochnaya meaning 'aircraft fragmentation', PTAB stands for protivo-tankovaya aviatsionnaya bomba meaning 'anti-tank aircraft bomb'.
As I reported earlier, after we saw the OFAB 250-270 High Explosive Bombs being dropped in fields in the Jabal Shehshebo region in the Hama we then saw evidence of them being dropped on buildings in other parts of Syria, and with a failure rate high enough to allow us to identify a number of examples of the bomb landing somewhat intact. In fact, the final video showed a bomb that had gone through the roof of a house and landed in one piece in a large crater, so the question is, are we seeing old stock now being deployed in Syria, and could the explain the failure rate? Another theory is the fuse was incorrectly set on the bombs, and this led to a failed or partial detonation. And as it's clear there's large number of dud bomblets it's also important to point of the long term and unintentional effects of cluster bomb usage in civilian areas
Cluster munitions are inaccurate and unreliable weapons that by their very nature pose unacceptable dangers to civilians. They pose an immediate threat during conflict by randomly scattering thousands of submunitions or "bomblets" over a vast area, and they continue to take even more civilian lives and limbs long after a conflict has ended, as hundreds of submunitions may fail to explode upon impact, littering the landscape with landmine-like "duds."
