Syria War Crimes Go from Bad to Worse to Even More Awful

Syria War Crimes Go from Bad to Worse to Even More Awful

As the Syrian civil war drags on into its third summer, the conflict only grows larger and more vicious, with Hezbollah, Israel, Turkey, and even the North Koreans joining in the fight. Both the United Nations and Human Rights Watch have released new reports on the carnage created by the rebellion and they paint a frightening picture of a conflict that seems further than it has even been from a peaceful reconciliation. The U.N. report accuses both sides of committing war crimes, including "crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations" such as summary executions and attacks on civilians.

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The U.N. also claims that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that chemical weapons have been used at least four times during the war, but much like earlier reports from American officials, they refuse to confirm who might be behind it. Because U.N. experts have not been allowed into the country to investigate, they say that they can't rule with any degree of certainty about who was behind the attacks, suggesting that even the rebels could be behind them.

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But in another report that is arguably more disturbing than the chemical attacks, Human Rights Watch claims that 147 bodies have been found the river running through the city of Aleppo between January and March of this year, and that all appear to have been executed by government forces or their supporters. More than 230 bodies have actually been recovered but HRW was only able to positively identify 147 of the victims, some as young as 11. The river in question has become the unofficial dividing line of the city, separating the government controlled areas, from those neighborhoods currently in the hands of rebels.

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Most disturbingly, these "official" crimes only seem to scratch the surface of the atrocities being committed everyday across the nation. The rest either go unreported or are impossible to verify, despite being chronicled on blogs, Facebook, and YouTube. One of the most recent and disturbing,was posted just yesterday. It shows a woman who allegedly raped, then shot by an Assad solider and left in the street as bait for rescuers, who were then killed by snipers as they tried to save her.

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Part of the reason for the increased brutality is that Syria has become more than just a war between Assad and his people. Hezbollah, which has always positioned itself as a anti-Israeli resistance movement has wholeheartedly joined the fight on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, hoping to preserve their alliance with Syria and Iran. The Lebanese Shiite group fears a future Syriadominated by Sunni rebels (making the conflict a more sectarian battle every day), but should Assad fall, the repercussions will be felt in Lebanon and beyond. Their involvement also threatens to pull inIsrael, as well, sparking fears of a larger regional war.

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And finally, even North Korea can't resist getting involved. Rebel groups claim that more than a dozen officers from Pyongyang's army have been spotted in Syria assisting the regime plans. It seems everyone has a stake in the outcome of this war, which probably explains why it's nowhere close to being resolved.

Afghans demand arrest of US troops over killings

An Afghan policeman walks past a vehicle as he investigates the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack, in Paktia Province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, June, 3, 2013. A suicide bomber targeting an American military delegation outside a government office in eastern Afghanistan killed more than a dozen on Monday, including many schoolchildren who were walking nearby and two international service members, officials said. (AP Photo/Ihsanullah Majroh)

Afghan men carry the bodies of 7 civilians killed, by a roadside bomb in the Alingar district of Laghman province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, June 3, 2013. A statement from the provincial government said a group of four women and two children had gone with a male driver into the hills to collect firewood. On their way back, their vehicle hit the mine and all inside were killed. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Hundreds of Afghans blocked a major highway south of Kabul on Tuesday, carrying freshly dug-up bodies they claimed were victims of torture by U.S. special forces and demanding the Americans be arrested, officials said.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition said the claims are false.

Violence erupted at the rally and two of the demonstrators were killed but the cause of their deaths was unclear, said Mohammand Hussain Fahimi, a provincial council member in Wardak, 45 kilometers (27 miles) south of Kabul.

The three bodies were dug up earlier on Tuesday morning near a former U.S. special forces base in Nirkh district, according toAttaullah Khogyanai, the provincial governor's spokesman. Six other bodies were unearthed there in the past few weeks.

Khogyanai said an investigation was underway but that it was too soon to say if the three were among at least nine people who villagers say disappeared into American custody and were never seen again.

U.S. special forces withdrew from parts of Wardak earlier this year at the insistence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, following alleged torture, kidnapping and summary execution of militant suspects there — charges U.S. officials have firmly denied.

Tuesday's rally brought a car with the three bodies to the local provincial governor's office, then protesters fanned out and blocked traffic on the main road from Kabul to Kandahar, said Fahimi, the council member.

"They were throwing stones and shouting against the government and the (American) special forces, saying, 'We want the killers of these innocent civilians to be prosecuted,'" Fahimi said.

The demonstrators tried to get into the governor's office, and police fired in the air to stop them, he said.

He added that at least two protesters were killed but he was unsure if they had been shot or trampled.

The U.S. has repeatedly denied accusations that people arrested by special forces in Wardak province died in American custody. However, villagers accuse the Americans and their Afghan partners of intimidation through unprovoked beatings, mass arrests and forced detentions.

"We are absolutely confident, based on the investigations that we have done, that neither U.S. nor coalition forces were involved in any unlawful deaths there," coalition spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was temporarily removing some of its staff from Afghanistan and curtailing some of its activities following an attack last week on its offices in the eastern city of Jalalabad, a spokesman said.

Robin Waudo, communications coordinator for the Red Cross in Afghanistan, said a decision on the number of international staff that would leave had not yet been made.

He said the organization would continue with some of its services, including orthopedics — the Red Cross supplies many artificial limbs across Afghanistan — supporting Kandahar's largest hospital, and keeping families in touch with detainees.

"We are doing this until we can analyze the situation," Waudo said.

Last week, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the Red Cross compound's gate and another gunman burst into the complex. An Afghan guard was killed in the explosion, and seven international staff inside the compound were later rescued by police.

The attack was the second in a week targeting aid groups in Afghanistan, raising worries that insurgents now consider humanitarian workers as prime targets along with international and Afghan security forces.

It remains unclear who attacked the Red Cross.

Two days after the attack, The Taliban made a rare public denial that they were responsible, saying they had previously cooperated with the organization and did not support targeting it.

Also Tuesday, an Afghan family's car struck a bomb buried in a road in the country's west on Tuesday and the father and three children were killed, an official said. They were the latest deaths in a sharp rise in civilian casualties amid a fierce wave of insurgent attacks.

The father and children were killed instantly, and the mother was critically injured in the explosion, said Abdul Rahman Zhawandai, spokesman for the western province of Farah.

Another buried bomb killed seven more people on Monday in the eastern province of Laghman. The same day, a suicide bomber targeting American troops in Paktia province killed nine Afghan children who were walking home from school nearby, as well as two of the Americans and an Afghan police officer.

Civilian casualties have soared in recent weeks as the Taliban and other insurgents attack around the country to test the Afghan security forces, now that international troops have stepped back in preparation for the withdrawal of most next year.

In just the past two weeks of the escalating spring offensive, violence has killed or wounded 412 Afghan civilians, up 24 percent over the same time last year, the U.N. said Monday. It blamed insurgents for 84 percent of those deaths.

The Taliban have repeatedly said they avoid killing innocent Afghans, but statistics kept by the United Nations show most civilian deaths are from insurgent attacks.

In southern Helmand province, six people — three women and three men — were killed on Tuesday when a bomb planted inside one of their homes detonated. The bomb was apparently planted by insurgents who had been fighting government forces in the Maulaza area a day earlier, provincial spokesman Ummar Zawaq said. The six, members of two families, had fled the fighting and returned to their home.

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Associated Press writers Kay Johnson and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report.

Sinkhole swallows swimming pool

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 1 hr 41 mins ago

France, Britain Confirms Use of Sarin Gas in Syria

France said Tuesday it has confirmed that the nerve gas sarin was used "multiple times and in a localized way" in Syria, including at least once by the regime. It was the most specific claim by any Western power about chemical weapons attacks in the 27-month-old conflict.

Britain later said that tests it conducted on samples taken from Syria also were positive for sarin.

The back-to-back announcements left many questions unanswered, highlighting the difficulties of confirming from a distance whether combatants in Syria have crossed the "red line" set by President Barack Obama. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has refused to allow U.N. investigators into the country.

The French and British findings, based on samples taken from Syria, came hours after a U.N. team said it had "reasonable grounds" to suspect small-scale use of toxic chemicals in at least four attacks in March and April.

The U.N. probe was conducted from outside Syria's borders, based on interviews with doctors and witnesses of purported attacks and a review of amateur videos from Syria. The team said solid evidence will remain elusive until inspectors can collect samples from victims directly or from the sites of alleged attacks.

Some experts cautioned that the type of evidence currently available to investigators — videos, witness reports and physiological samples of uncertain origin — leaves wide doubts.

At the same time, forensic evidence of alleged chemical weapons use is fading away with time, and the longer U.N. inspectors are kept out of Syria, the harder it will be to collect conclusive proof, they said.

Syria is suspected of having one of the world's largest chemical weapons arsenals, including mustard and nerve gas, such as sarin. In recent weeks, the regime and those trying to topple Assad have increasingly used accusations of chemical weapons use as a propaganda tool, but have offered no solid proof.

In the West, meanwhile, the lack of certainty about such allegations is linked to a high stakes political debate over whether the U.S. should get more involved in the Syria conflict, including by arming those fighting Assad.

Obama has been reluctant to send weapons to the Syrian rebels, in part because of the strong presence of Islamic militants among them. Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to a terrorist group would cross a "red line," hinting at forceful intervention in such an event.

Yet he has insisted on a high level of proof, including a "chain of custody," that can only come from on-site investigations currently being blocked by the regime.

In Tuesday's announcement about sarin, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said his government had analyzed several samples, including some brought back from Syria by reporters from the Le Monde newspaper.

He said that there was "no doubt" that at least in one case, the regime and its allies were responsible for the attack. "We have integrally traced the chain, from the attack, to the moment people were killed, to when the samples were taken and analyzed," Fabius told the TV station France 2.

He said a line was crossed and that "all options are on the table," including intervening "militarily where the gas is produced or stored."

In London, Britain's Foreign Office said samples from Syria were tested at a government laboratory and that the presence of sarin was confirmed. It did not say when or where the samples were obtained.

IRS victims testify as new agency scandal emerges

Tea party victims tell Congress of IRS harassment as new scandal emerges over agency spending

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Leaders of conservative groups complained to Congress on Tuesday that they were abused by the Internal Revenue Service for years as they sought tax-exempt status, including questions one Iowa anti-abortion group said it got about prayer meetings.

The testimony of the tea party and other conservative organizations before the House Ways and Means Committee was the first time groups complaining about the IRS's treatment have appeared directly before lawmakers since the IRS revealed the problem — and apologized for it — last month. They talked about applications for tax-exempt status that took three years for approval — or in some cases haven't yet been approved — and queries from the agency about the identity of their donors, video of meetings and whether speakers at such gatherings expressed political views.

"I'm a born-free American woman," Becky Gerritson, president of the Wetumpka Tea Party in Alabama, tearfully told the committee, adding, "I'm telling my government, you've forgotten your place."

Sue Martinek, president of the Coalition for Life of Iowa, an anti-abortion group, said the IRS asked them about "the content of our prayers."

"As Christians, we know we needed to pray for better solutions for unplanned pregnancies," she said.

The president of another group, the National Organization for Marriage, said the IRS publicly disclosed confidential information about donors. George Eastman said he thought the IRS's release of that information was designed to intimidate contributors to the group — which opposes same-sex marriage — "to chill them from donating again."

The testimony came as the Treasury Department inspector general who released a report last month detailing the inappropriate IRS behavior prepared to release another report, this one on excessive IRS spending at employee conferences.

At Tuesday's Ways and Means hearing, committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said the conservative groups were being singled out for their beliefs.

"They are Americans who did what we ask people to do every day — add their voice to the dialogue that defines our country," Camp said. "And for pursuing that passion, for simply exercising their First Amendment rights — the freedoms of association, expression and religion — the IRS singled them out."

The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Sander Levin, said it was time to correct the IRS's problems.

"You are owed an apology," Levin, from Michigan, told the witnesses. "We say to you that each of us is committed to doing our part to ensure this does not happen again."

The leader of a small South Carolina tea party group said her organization first applied for tax-exempt status in 2010 — and is still waiting for the application to be processed.

"Nearly three years in waiting for an answer is totally unacceptable," said Dianne Belsom, president of the Laurens County Tea Party. "The IRS needs to be fully investigated and held accountable for its incompetence harassment and targeting of conservative groups."

Belsom said her group in rural South Carolina has about 60 members and "seeks to educate ourselves and fellow citizens on various issues pertinent to living in a free country." The group also holds candidate forums in election years, she said.

"I'd like to note that our group is a small-time operation with very little money and this represents a complete waste of time by the IRS in terms of any money they would collect if we were not tax-exempt," Belsom said.

For more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns, IRS agents in a Cincinnati office singled out tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status, according to a report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration.

The report said tea party groups were asked inappropriate questions about their donors, their political affiliations and their positions on political issues. The additional scrutiny delayed applications for an average of nearly two years, making it difficult for many of the groups to raise money.

George was scheduled to release another report Tuesday, one that said the IRS spent $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.

The conference spending included $4 million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which requested the report.

Instead, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 a night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art," the committee said.

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel has called the conferences "an unfortunate vestige from a prior era."

Werfel took over the agency about two weeks ago, after President Barack Obama forced the previous acting commissioner to resign.

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