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"When I was in Latakia countryside people came up to us and they described in detail
finding dead relatives either in a mass grave or in their homes in the village."
On the 4th August at least 20 opposition groups in Syria began a military offensive in the
Latakia region on the Turkish border in which at least 190 civilians were killed and more
than 200 hostages seized.
These hostages are still being held by two Jihadist groups who took part in the offensive.
The now notorious Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and the lesser known Jaish al-Muhajireen
wal-Ansar.
The vast majority of these hostages are women and children who were not involved in any
fighting.
Although this offensive began more than two months ago now, the extent of the abuses has
only just been revealed following an on-site investigation by Human Rights Watch and the
group believes that this is the first evidence of members of the Syrian opposition carrying
out war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to reports released by Human Rights
Watch on the 11th October at least 67 of the victims were unlawfully killed in or around
pro-government Alawite villages. Human Rights Watch is yet to determine whether the remaining
123 dead civilians were killed unlawfully but it says the high civilian death toll,
the nature of the recorded wounds which includes multiple gun shots and stabbing wounds, and
the presence of 43 women, children, and elderly among the dead all suggest that opposition
forces either intentionally or indiscriminately killed most of these 123 victims. In some
cases residents of the villages affected in Latakia report opposition fighters gunning
down or executing entire families and Human Rights Watch say that the scale and pattern
of the abuses suggest they were systematic and planned as part of the deliberate attack
on a civilian population. In other words the deaths most likely did not result from civilians
simply getting caught up in the crossfire. These deaths were planned.
It is not yet clear exactly which of the 20 groups involved in the offensive were responsible
for the abuses committed. But Human Rights Watch believes that five were the main fund-raisers,
organisers and executors of the attacks. These include: Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic State
of Iraq and al-Sham, otherwise known as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar,
and Suqor al-Izz.
Other attacks carried out by ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have been well documented on YouTube
and you can watch other videos we've made about these groups on the left here.