Al Assad blasted by UN investigation team

Syrian government forces have committed human rights violations, including executions, “on an alarming scale” during the past three months, UN investigators said on Wednesday.

Their report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, also listed multiple killings and kidnappings by armed opposition groups trying to topple President Bashar Al Assad.

“The situation on the ground is dangerously and quickly deteriorating,” the 20-page report said. “Human rights violations are occurring across the country on an alarming scale during military operations against locations believed to be hosting defectors and/or those perceived as affiliated with anti-government armed groups.”

Syria’s UN ambassador dismissed the accusations and threatened to end cooperation with international agencies. Western powers called for the UN investigators to be given “full and unfettered accesss” to Syria immediately.

“The evidence is inconvertible,” US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said at the meeting. “The Assad regime is waging a brutal campaign against the Syrian people, characterised by aerial bombardment, mass killings, rape and other atrocities.”

The UN team conducted nearly 400 interviews and collected photos, videos, satellite imagery and other documentary evidence during its investigation.