HRW Affirms Terrorist Takfiri Groups Committed Crimes against Humanity in Lattakia Countryside

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described the crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups against innocent people in the villages of the northern countryside of Lattakia in August as crimes against humanity.

 Scores of civilians including children and women were victims of the terrorist assault.

 According to Press TV, the rights organization stressed that terrorist Takfiri groups killed 190 civilians and held over 200 others hostage in Syria’s western province of Lattakia in August alone.

In a report released on Friday, the New York-based rights group presented evidence that anti-Syria terrorist groups carried out the killings and the hostage-taking in their several-day operation that began around villages in Lattakia on August 4.

The 105-page report was compiled based upon on-site investigation and interviews with 35 people, including the survivors of the attacks.

According to the report, most of the killings apparently took place on the first day of the offensive. A vast majority of the hostages are also women and children.

The human rights organization further said the acts of violence “rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” calling on the UN Security Council to immediately take such cases to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The rights group also stressed that the scale and organization of the attacks on civilians suggest premeditation.

“This operation was a coordinated, planned attack on the civilian population in these villages,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

The HRW report also said over 20 armed groups took part in the operation, while many of the dead had been executed by al-Qaeda-affiliated groups.

Since the outbreak of the events in Syria in March 2011, several video clips have been released showing the grisly crimes perpetrated by foreign-sponsored terrorists against innocent civilians in the country.

H. Mustafa