BEIRUT — The Syrian regime and an increasingly organized rebel force are carrying out illegal killings and torturing their opponents, but government forces are still responsible for most of the violence stemming from the country’s uprising, a U.N. panel said Thursday.
The findings were released in Geneva by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which said the conflict has become “increasingly militarized.” The report was based on hundreds of interviews since March with victims and witnesses who fled the country.
“Fighters in anti-government armed groups were killed after being captured or wounded,” the report said. “In some particularly grave instances, entire families were executed in their homes — usually the family members of those opposing the government.”
Children, including boys as young as 10, have said they are “tortured to admit that older male members of their family are Free Syrian Army soldiers or supporters,” the report said. The Free Syrian Army is the rebel force trying to topple the government.
The U.N. panel also said there is a growing list of abuses committed by anti-government armed groups, including executions of military forces and suspected informers. Anti-government armed groups have increasingly resorted to roadside bombs and have abducted civilians and government forces, apparently for prisoner exchanges or ransom, according to the report.
On Thursday, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said a mother and her five children between the ages of 4 and 13 were killed in Hama province.
There were no further details on the killings or who was behind them.
Despite the country’s spiraling violence, President Bashar Assad said Thursday that Syria would emerge from the crisis “thanks to the steadfastness of its people.”
Assad spoke during a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s special envoy, Telecommunications Minister Reza Taqipour. Iran is one of Syria’s strongest allies.
The Syrian government denies that the 15-month-old revolt that has engulfed the country is being driven by a popular uprising against Assad’s rule, instead arguing that terrorists are behind the unrest.
The opposition denies any links to terrorism, saying they were forced to take up arms after government forces fired on peaceful protesters. A string of suicide attacks this year has raised fears among some observers that extremists are trying to exploit the chaos in Syria.
The U.N. estimated in March that more than 9,000 people have been killed in the revolt, and the death toll rises every day.
More than 250 U.N. observers are now based in cities around Syria to monitor a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan, but the cease-fire is violated every day by both sides in the conflict.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that Annan’s plan is the only option right now for ending the violence in Syria.
Ban said in a CNN interview that “at this time, we don’t have any plan B.”
The former U.N. secretarygeneral’s plan calls for a complete cessation of violence, and Ban said, “Unfortunately, this has not been implemented.”
On Thursday, opposition groups said government forces shelled the rebel-held town of Rastan on Thursday, killing at least three people. Also Thursday, the state-run news agency said an armed group assassinated a lieutenant, shooting him and his 13-year-old son outside Damascus.
The violence in Syria has spilled over into Lebanon, where deadly clashes linked to the conflict next door have killed at least 10 people in the past two weeks.
Lebanese and Syrian officials have said armed gunmen in Syria kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims Tuesday, setting off protests in Beirut’s Shiitedominated southern suburbs, where residents burned tires and blocked roads.
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Thursday condemned the kidnapping and called for the men’s immediate release.
Syria’s main opposition council, meanwhile, said it has accepted the resignation of its Paris-based president who earlier offered to step down over mounting criticism of his leadership.
The Syrian National Council has been plagued by infighting and divisions since its inception in September, complicating Western efforts to bolster the opposition. Burhan Ghalioun’s offer to resign came just days after he was re-elected for a third three-month term.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is preparing a plan that would essentially give U.S. nods of approval to arms transfers from Arab nations to some Syrian opposition fighters.
The effort, U.S. officials said, would vet members of the Free Syrian Army and other groups to determine whether they are suitable recipients of munitions to fight the Assad government and to ensure that weapons don’t wind up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked terrorists or other extremist groups such as Hezbollah that could target Israel.
The vetting would be the first tiny step the U.S. has made toward ensuring that the Syrian opposition uses the weapons to fight Assad and not to turn it into a full sectarian conflict.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, stressed that the United States, which is already providing nonlethal aid to Syria’s political opposition, is not supplying military assistance to Assad’s foes.
YEMEN
Yemen’s military launched an attack Thursday on an al-Qaida hide-out in the country’s south as part of a wider offensive, killing 35 militants, the Defense Ministry said.
The attack came four days after al-Qaida claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a military parade rehearsal in the capital, Sana. The bombing killed 96 Yemeni soldiers. Funerals for 67 of the soldiers were held Thursday.
The Defense Ministry said that in its attack, the Yemeni military took control of Wadi Banaa Arab, near the town of Jaar, another al-Qaida stronghold.
Since May 12, Yemen’s military has been pushing an offensive against al-Qaida, aiming to uproot the militants from territory they overran during more than a year of internal political turmoil in Yemen. Casualties have been high on both sides.
TUNISIA
The prosecutor in a military tribunal has demanded the death penalty for Tunisia’s former dictator over his role in the deaths of protesters during the popular uprising that overthrew him a year ago.
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and is being tried in absentia by both military and civilian courts in Tunisia for alleged crimes committed during his 23-year, ironfisted rule of the North African country.
The trial concerns orders to soldiers to open fire on protesters in the four southern towns of Thala, Kasserine, Kairouan and Tajerouine during the early weeks of the month-long uprising that began in December 2010.
At least 338 people died in the uprising and another 2,147 were wounded.
Information for this article was contributed by Zeina Karam, John Heilprin, Albert Aji, Matthew Lee, Anne Gearan, Kimberley Dozier, Elizabeth Kennedy, Ahmed Al-Haj and Bouazza Ben Bouazza of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 05/25/2012