JOKE OF THE MONTH - Efficiency of Russian Weapons Proved by Fight Against Terror in Mideast – Putin

Efficiency of Russian weapons was proved by fight against terrorism, for example, in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, adding that the analysis of practical use of defense technologies would improve the quality of military equipment.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The president added that Russian military equipment was used for humanitarian purposes – for example to demine the liberated cities of Aleppo and Palmyra and to neutralize terrorists’ chemical weapons. Putin pointed at the efficiency of mobile medical complexes and other Russian military products.

"The capabilities of Russian weapons, their reliability and efficiency are seen in the fight against terrorism in Syria, counteracting terrorism in the entire Middle East region. Using aircraft and air defense systems in the real combat situation provides air and engineer staff, air defense crews as well as developers of Russian military production with absolutely priceless experience. I want to thank them for their active work and prompt reaction to the remarks emerging during the use of military vehicles," Putin said at the session of the Commission for Military Technology Cooperation.

Putin also called for analyzing the usage of military technologies and improving methods of military training.

"Such an approach will also promote the development of ties in the system of military technology cooperation, increasing the quality of the country’s military products," he added.

Russia launched its military operation in Syria on September 30, 2015, at the request of the Syrian government.

NB - It should be noted that what Russia calls Efficiency and targeted bombing is commonly referred to by Civilised Nations as Carpet Bombing! 

John Browne, Blog Owner

Human Rights Watch: Donetsk Prisoner Parade is a War Crime

On the 23rd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, August 24th, militants in Donetsk paraded a few dozen Ukrainian prisoners down the city’s main thoroughfare, grimly mocking a military parade in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. A few hundred onlookers jeered, cursed, spit, and threw vegetables at the hand-cuffed and head-bowed prisoners. Trucks followed them, symbolically cleaning the street behind them by spraying water on the asphalt.

 

The spectacle wasn’t just gut-wrenching and humiliating; it might also be a war crime, according to human rights activists.

 

This wasn’t the first time that pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists have humiliated and abused Ukrainian citizens. International non-governmental organizations have already accused the armed pro-Russian groups of serious human rights abuses. In July, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission to Ukraine reported that Russian-supported militants have committed abuses such as unlawful abductions, torture, and extrajudicial executions. The report also stated that pro-Russians forces have used civilians as shields, purposely placing themselves in populated areas next to civilians. Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, the head of the UN mission to Ukraine, Armen Harutyunyan, stated that the “armed [pro-Russian] groups are placing themselves among populated zones, and this is increasing the number of civilian casualties.” The UN findings were excoriated by the Russian government, which accused the international organization of biases. Now, following the humiliating parade of captured Ukrainian servicemen in Donetsk, human rights organizations are again accusing the pro-Russian militants of committing war crimes.

 

Ole Solvang, a senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on the HRW website that the Donetsk incident is a violation of the Geneva Conventions’ common article 3, which prohibits the humiliating treatment of prisoners. “This parade is a clear violation of that absolute prohibition, and may be considered a war crime,” he wrote.

 

Article 3 of the Geneva Convention delineates the laws of war in “the case of armed conflict not of an international character.” The International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations have referred to the conflict in Ukraine as a non-international internal conflict, even while the Ukrainian government and its Western supporters have said that the war is an international one because of Russia’s direct participation and support for hostilities. Clause 1 of Article 3 clearly states that “persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms,” cannot be subject to “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” To a fair observer the parade of unarmed and surrendered prisoners were almost certainly victimized by “humiliating and degrading treatment.”

 

The parade was not only deeply humiliating, which is already a war crime in of itself, but also potentially dangerous in that it exposed the captured servicemen to potential vigilante violence. The Russian government is apparently unfazed by the display. Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, remarked that he saw nothing disturbing in the parade. “I have not seen anything that even resembled close to mockery,” he said, before deflecting attention to Russian accusations of war crimes by Ukrainian nationalist group Pravyi Sektor [Right Sector - Eng].

 

This week, the New York Times also showed to the world the mistreatment of a local Donbas woman accused of allegedly spying for the Ukrainian army. Militants in Donetsk wrapped the middle-aged woman in a Ukrainian flag and tied her to a sign post. A passer-by was photographed kicking and spitting at her. Others reportedly treated the victim the same way, blaming her for the killed civilians in the city.  A pro-Russian militant hinted that she would deserve whatever might happen to her.

 

The uncomfortable reality is that these abuses and war crime violations are likely to increase in severity as long as the war continues unabated. Following the failure of the peace talks in Minsk, a renewed Russian-supported offensive, and the capture of uniformed Russian servicemen on Ukrainian territory, the prospect of peace seems further and further away.   Fear begets violence, and the longer the war drags on people will increasingly succumb to dehumanizing others. The militants will continue to blame spies, traitors, and a fifth column. Ukrainian forces will continue to fight and become increasingly hardened themselves. The militants’ actions in recent days are meant to accelerate this process and make peace and reconciliation insurmountable. Public militant abuses of captured Ukrainian servicemen and civilians are designed to harden and divide Ukrainian society as a whole, driving Ukrainians to blame the Donbas as a whole rather than the relatively small number of perpetrators. Although the aims and outcomes of the ongoing direct Russian invasion of southeastern Ukraine are still unclear, the current escalation bodes extremely poorly for a speedy conclusion to the conflict, despite the deepest level of concern of the West. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian civilians continue to suffer.

My View - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demands a decisive response

 

PermalinkLet’s be clear: Russia has invaded Ukraine. We can debate the reasons. But we can no longer debate the fact. Nor can we stand by and do nothing. It is time for the United States and Europeans to act. This weekend’s European Council meeting in Brussels and next week’s Nato summit in Wales should be devoted to forging an effective, and lasting, response.

 

Numerous reports from southeastern Ukraine make clear that Russian military forces are operating in Ukraine in ways that can only be described as an invasion. Russian artillery, long used to fire against Ukrainian forces from the Russian side of the border, is now firing from inside Ukraine. Russian tanks and armoured vehicles are rolling along Ukrainian roads. Russian airborne troops, captured by Ukrainian forces, openly admit that they had been sent there to disrupt Ukraine’s effort to retake control of its territory.

 

Why Russian President Vladimir Putin chose this moment to escalate is not immediately clear, but none of the plausible reasons offer any solace. At the least, the overt use of Russian forces is meant to forestall the defeat of the Russian-supported rebels in eastern Ukraine. In recent weeks, government forces were regaining significant ground in the east. Opening up a new front further south could force the Ukrainian military to shift its attention from the rebel-held areas and thus enable the rebels to strengthen their positions.

 

The Russian military effort is probably designed to establish effective control of key parts of Ukraine. The invasion route and focus in southeast Ukraine is consistent with an effort to establish a land route to Crimea, which since the illegal Russian annexation last March has been reachable only by sea and air. It is also consistent with an even more nefarious goal – establishing a territorial link between Russia and the Russian occupied Transnistria region in Moldova.

 

One thing should be clear. This is not about trying to influence Ukraine’s alignment with the west, as Mr Putin’s apologists continue to claim. For Mr Putin, the issue has never been whether Ukraine will have an economic relationship with the EU or be a member of Nato. To him, the issue is whether and how Russia can effectively control Ukraine.

 

The Russian invasion of a neighbouring country poses a serious threat not only to the European security environment, but to global order. If there is one principle that has undergirded that order since 1945 it is that states do not seize territory by force. That principle was blatantly violated in March, and it is again being violated today. At this point, calls for a ceasefire, for de-escalation, or a return to the negotiating table play right into Mr Putin’s hands. Instead, we need to take actions that will lead Moscow to withdraw its military forces from Ukraine and halt its support of rebel forces, and allow Kiev to retake complete control over all of Ukraine’s territory

.

Fortunately, over the next few days the leaders of EU, the US and Canada are slated to meet in Brussels and Cardiff, giving them the opportunity to decide on steps that can help bring about this result. These should include:

• First, a clear commitment by all 28 Nato allies to bolster their capacity to defend all of Nato’s territory. That requires an explicit guarantee by all 28 to halt a decade-plus of cuts in defence spending and begin to make the investments necessary for their security. It also requires a significant, forward presence of Nato air, sea, and land forces in central and eastern Europe, including Poland and the Baltic States. Such a presence needs to be visible and persistent, and should remain in place for as long as required.

• Second, western countries need to supply the Ukrainian military with advanced weapons and a steady supply of intelligence to bolster its ability to defend its territory. Concern that such assistance could be provocative to Moscow ignores the fact that it is Russia that has invaded Ukraine, and that Moscow can put a halt to the assistance by withdrawing its troops and end support of rebel forces.

• Finally, the EU and the US need to impose full-scale economic sanctions. That means real, Iran-style financial sanctions, including freezing Russian assets overseas and denying Russia access to the international financial system. It also means an immediate end to any arms deliveries to Russia, including those already under contract such as the French Mistral assault ships. And it means and end to any technical or financial support for Russia’s energy sector.

We are at a defining moment. If we ignore or prevaricate about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Putin will succeed in upending the European order at a grave cost to Europe’s security. If we act decisively, and act now, Mr Putin will fail in his effort to seek Russian control over Ukraine and the territory of the former Soviet Union and Europe will again be secure.

WANTED FOR WAR CRIMES

WANTED!!!!

 

 RUSSIAN TERRORIS'S AND FASCIEST PUTIN  COLLABORATORS IN OCCUPIED UKRAINE.

 

 

CLEARLY MARKED AIR AMBULANCE SHOT DOWN BY RUSSIAN INVASION FORCES IN UKRAINE

WHY RUSSIAN'S ARE NOT FIT TO BE PART OF THE HUMAN RACE

As Peace Talks Approach, Rebels Humiliate Prisoners In Ukraine

 

 This Blond Piece of Shit is a Russian Whore

 

On the sidewalk of a busy street beside a checkpoint, a bearded gunman wrapped a woman in a Ukrainian flag and forced her to stand, sobbing in terror, holding a sign identifying her as a spotter for Ukrainian artillery. 

“She kills our children,” it read.

Because the woman was a spy, said the gunman, a pro-Russian militant, everything that would happen to her would be well-deserved.

Passers-by stopped their cars to get out and spit, slap her face and throw tomatoes at her.

Her knees buckled.

She struggled to mumble in protest of her innocence and to shake her head in denial. 

This theatrical scene of abuse unfolded a day after the rebel movement had paraded Ukrainian prisoners of war down a main thoroughfare here at bayonet point, then dramatically washed the pavement behind them.

The public humiliation of prisoners came as the presidents of Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet for peace talks in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on Tuesday.

The taunting and provocation appeared to be aimed at dissuading the Ukrainian government from accepting a settlement that might forestall a broader Russian intervention, a development that separatists here are banking on as their military fortunes wane.

Further muddying the prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough, Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of opening a new front in the war by sending an armored column across the border from Russia south of the Ukrainian lines that surround the rebel capital, Donetsk.

The Russian government dismissed the accusation and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Moscow, said that Western governments should not expect Russia to make all the concessions in a settlement and that Ukraine, too, would have to compromise.

The Ukrainian military said 10 tanks and two armored infantry vehicles manned by Russian soldiers disguised as separatist fighters had crossed the border near the town of Novoazovsk and engaged in combat with Ukrainian border guards.

The claim could not be independently confirmed.

Also on Monday, Russia announced it would send a second convoy of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine across a border area controlled by pro-Russian separatists; Ukrainian officials say the movement of goods is calculated to undermine the country’s sovereignty.

The drama that played out on the streets of Donetsk Monday seemed sure to ratchet up tensions.

A military unit of Russian nationals from the region of North Ossetia, in southern Russia, held the woman at a checkpoint in a roundabout in Donetsk known as “the Motel,” for a nearby hotel.

The men, smiling and gesturing toward the woman, waved over cars for drivers to observe or take part.

“We should hang you on the square,” one woman in the crowd yelled, then walked up and spat in the face of the victim, then kicked her in a thigh, causing the woman accused of spying to stagger back.

The gunmen looked on.

At times, the pro-Russian soldiers posed beside the crying woman to take selfies on their smartphones, or playfully twirl her hair with their fingers.

At one point, a fighter walked a few paces back, crouched in the street and aimed a Kalashnikov rifle at the woman in a mock execution.

The woman shut her eyes.

“Open your eyes, stand up straight!” another of the gunmen yelled.

A call placed by The New York Times to an aide for a senior separatist commander informing him of the abuse resulted in the rebel soldiers at the checkpoint briefly detaining the journalists.

The aide, who uses only the nickname The Georgian, sent a car with gunmen to extricate the suspected spy and journalists from the Motel.

The two groups of gunmen agreed to release the journalists, but were not able to agree on handing over the woman.

After the discussion, the captors drove her away to an unknown location.

The man known as The Georgian, who is a member of the Vostok Battalion, which consists of mostly local Ukrainians, said the Ossetian volunteers at the Motel checkpoint do not report to Ukrainian commanders, so nothing further could be done.

He said he condemned the abuse.

At the peace talks in Minsk, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine will be joined by representatives of the European Union and the Russia-led Customs Union, including the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Although the talks offer some hope for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, both Putin and Mr. Poroshenko are under strong pressure from nationalists at home to press on militarily.

Oleh Voloshyn, a former Ukrainian diplomat, said in a telephone interview from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, that Mr. Poroshenko will use the summit meeting to ask Putin to halt the flow of Russian volunteers and military hardware across the border and may offer, perhaps in private talks or via subordinates on the sidelines, autonomous status for portions of eastern Ukraine in exchange.

The Ukrainian government, however, will not accept any legitimization of the main rebel group here, the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mr. Voloshyn said, particularly after the public abuse of prisoners.

“After yesterday’s parade of prisoners of war, the sympathy toward the people of the Donbass is low in other regions in Ukraine,” he said, making it politically difficult for Mr. Poroshenko to negotiate, something that factions in the separatist movement intent on drawing in Russian peacekeepers want, Mr. Voloshyn said.

“Most Ukrainians want peace. But if it comes to a choice between total humiliation and war, they will choose war.”

In Moscow, Lavrov, the foreign minister, was questioned about the parade held Sunday in which prisoners of war from the Ukrainian Army were displayed.

Researchers with Human Rights Watch said the parade violated Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment against prisoners of war.”

Lavrov said the parade did not appear to meet that standard.

“I saw a picture of this parade,” he said.

“I did not see anything close to abuse.”

War Crimes!!!

 

 

Violation of the Geneva Conventions 

Separatists made Ukrainian POWs to parade in Donersk

Several dozen people have gathered by the reinforced checkpoint at the entrance to the rebel-occupied special services (SBU) building here. It is 6 p.m, but the August heat is still stifling. The people, most of them women, wait in silence, their eyes downcast. They are waiting for The List.

"Is this the place where they read the list of captives?" I whisper to three women huddled on a small bench, a few steps away from numerous camouflage-clad guards with Kalashnikov assault rifles. "Have they taken someone from you too?" one of the women, Anna, whispers back.

 

When I explain that I am here to document illegal detentions, hostage-taking, and other abuses, two of the women jump up and walk away, merging with the crowd, but Anna stays put. "Yes, every night, between 6 and 7, an SBU representative comes out and reads the updated list of those who they're holding. They took my husband away last night. If he's being held here his name should be on the list. If not I'll just keep looking. They have such prisons in several other places around town. Also, they take some of the captives outside Donetsk."

 

Anna sighs, staring into space. In a soft monotone, she describes how she got home and found her husband missing and her apartment torn apart. Her neighbors told her that a group of armed men acting on behalf of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) forced their way in, carried out a "search," took the family computer as well as some valuables, told her husband he was being "arrested," and drove off with him.

 

She thinks it is because he expressed some pro-Ukrainian views on social media. But she is even more frightened they might accuse him of being an informer for the Ukrainian army because he "often rode his bicycle to work and they just have this thing about bicycles and there are some unfriendly neighbors who could have reported him to the DNR, simply out of spite…."

 

It's 6:30 p.m. already. A DNR representative in rumpled fatigues approaches the gate from inside the yard, and people flatten themselves against the gate and one another, straining to get closer. He unfolds a two-page document, clears his throat and starts reading out names, stumbling over syllables. I count 55 names. "That's it," he says. For another few seconds, the crowd is silent, and then the silence is broken by a piercing scream, "I know my son is here! Why is his name not on the list? Why are you holding him? He's just 18! What did he do?"

 Half-burned list of individuals targeted for arrest in the DNR.

 

More questions are fired at the list-reader, who just shrugs and says his job is to read the list, not to provide explanations. He asks the relatives of those on the list, Anna among them, to stay for a few minutes and the rest to go home without making a fuss. He even sounds sympathetic, referring to the "severity of war time," reassuring the crowd that those on the list are treated well and suggesting that those who aren't on the list will be found sooner or later.

 

Some of the relatives who have learned from the list that their loved ones are in detention get no further information except, "If he was detained there must be a reason." Others learn that their family members were taken away for political reasons. Many learn that their relatives were rounded up simply for violating the curfew — being spotted outside between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. — or walking around drunk. Their punishment is digging trenches at the front line or filling up sandbags at checkpoints for 10 days or several weeks, turning them into forced laborers. Anyone who's been through insurgent checkpoints around Donetsk has seen them.

 

When Anna finally walks away from the gate, her face is impassive, her eyes are staring blankly. She says the DNR representative did not have any specific information for her: merely that he husband is "under arrest" and they're "working on it." She adds, "I'll try to pass on a food parcel and some clothing to him tomorrow. They're saying it's not allowed but I've seen some people do it."

 

Sounds of shelling rumble from the outskirts of the city. She nods goodbye, and in the fading evening light her face reminds me of the two nurses I interviewed in a maternity ward several hours earlier. They had been caught in a shelling attack, apparently by Ukrainian forces, earlier this month and could not take shelter because they had to care for three premature newborns hooked up to IVs and oxygen. Their story is in no way similar to Anna's, but the terror in their eyes is the same. 

Serbia Says It Won't Impose Sanctions On Russia

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic says Serbia will not impose sanctions against Russia.

 

But Vucic told a news conference in Belgrade on August 22 that Serbia was also not planning to subsidize exports to Moscow.

 

After the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions against Russian state banks and major industries last month over the crisis in Ukraine, Russia responded with a wide-ranging ban on food products imported from those countries.

 

Serbian food producers hope to take advantage of the trade row to boost exports to Russia.

 

Vucic said he had received an aide-memoire this week from an EU official in Belgrade calling on Serbia to refrain from increasing exports to Russia, as a matter of solidarity with the bloc.

 

As a candidate for membership of the EU, Serbia is under pressure to bring its foreign policy into line with that of the 28-member EU.

 

(Nothing surprising form another country of scum who carried out the worst case of mass murder and war crimes in Europe since the Nazi's)

Ukraine says its troops make breakthrough in rebel stronghold

Ukrainian forces have raised their national flag over a police station in the city of Luhansk which was for months under rebel control, Kiev said on Sunday, in what could be a breakthrough in Ukraine's efforts to crush pro-Moscow separatists.

 

Ukrainian officials allege though that the rebels are fighting a desperate rearguard action to hold on to Luhansk -- which is their supply route into neighboring Russia -- and say the flow of weapons and fighters from Russia has accelerated.

 

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia were preparing to meet for talks on the conflict in Berlin on Sunday, though it seemed likely that the diplomacy could be overshadowed by fast-moving developments on the battlefield.

 

Russia denies helping the rebels and accuses Kiev, backed by the West, of triggering a humanitarian crisis through indiscriminate use of force against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who reject the Ukrainian government's rule.

 

Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said government forces fought separatists in a neighborhood of Luhansk city on Saturday and took control of the Zhovtneviy neighborhood police station.

 

"They raised the state flag over it," Lysenko told a news briefing.

 

Separatist officials in Luhansk could not be reached by telephone, and a separatist spokeswoman in Donetsk, the other rebel strong-hold in eastern Ukraine, said she did not know what had happened in Luhansk.

 

If confirmed, the taking of the police station is significant because the city of Luhansk has for several months been a rebel redoubt where Kiev's writ has not run.

 

Ukrainian troops have been closing in on the city from the outskirts, but had not previously been able to get forces inside the city limits. The separatists still control sections of the border linking Luhansk region to Russia.

 

The four-month-old conflict in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east has reached a critical phase, with Kiev and Western governments watching nervously to see if Russia will intervene in support of the increasingly besieged rebels.

 

The rebels have responded to the reverses with defiant rhetoric, and the fighting continues.

 

Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday that the separatists shot down a Ukrainian warplane. The pilot ejected and was located and recovered after a search, a military spokesman, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, told Reuters.

 

On Saturday, Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said rebels were in the process of receiving some 150 armored vehicles, including 30 tanks, and 1,200 fighters trained in Russia. He said they planned to launch a major counter-offensive.

"They are joining at the most crucial moment," he said in a video recorded on Friday.

 

The assertion that the fighters were trained in Russia is awkward for Moscow, which has repeatedly denied allegations from Kiev and its Western allies that it is providing material support to separatist fighters.

CRITICAL PHASE

 

In a sign of concern at the latest rebel comments, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko agreed in a phone call on Saturday that deliveries of weapons to separatists in Ukraine must stop and a ceasefire must be achieved, a German government spokesman said.

 

The Ukraine crisis has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War and set off a round of trade restrictions that are hurting struggling economies in both Russia and Europe.

 

Adding to the tensions, Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads for days over a convoy of 280 Russian trucks carrying water, food and medicine.

 

It was despatched by Moscow bound for eastern Ukraine but has been parked up for several days in Russia near the border.

 

Kiev has said the convoy could be a Trojan Horse for Russia to get weapons to the rebels, a notion that Moscow has dismissed as absurd. It said the aid is desperately needed by civilians left without water and power and under constant bombardment from the Ukrainian advance.

 

After days of wrangling between Kiev and Moscow, there were signs of movement on Sunday.

 

Sixteen trucks separated from the main convoy and drove into a Russian bus depot near a border crossing into Ukraine, a Reuters cameraman said from the scene.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in Geneva that Russian and Ukrainian border guards and customs officials had agreed that the cargo could be inspected.

REBEL ROUT?

 

Ukrainian officials have painted a picture of a separatist force that is on the run and starting to panic - though rebel fighters Reuters reporters have spoken to in Donetsk say they are determined to stand firm.

 

The Ukrainian National Guard said its forces had seized a rebel field commander from Luhansk region as well as 13 others suspected of “terrorist activity”.

 

“The terrorists are putting on ordinary clothes, taking only their passport with them and are trying to pass themselves off as ordinary peaceful citizens on public transport to try to get through the Ukrainian checkpoints,” the National Guard said.

 

In the past week, three senior rebel leaders have been removed from their posts, pointing to mounting disagreement over how to turn the tide of the fighting back in their favor.

The fighting has taken a heavy human toll.

 

The United Nations said this month that an estimated 2,086 people, including civilians and combatants, had been killed in the conflict. That figure nearly doubled since the end of July, when Ukrainian forces stepped up their offensive and fighting started in urban areas.

 

In Donetsk which like Luhansk is now ringed by Kiev's forces, artillery fire has struck apartment buildings, killing and wounding residents, according to Reuters reporters. Officials in Kiev deny they are firing heavy weapons at residential areas.

'War crime': Gaddafi, his son and over 60 loyalists executed by rebel fighters – HRW

Libyan rebels abused and mass murdered Colonel Gaddafi, his son Mutassim, and 66 loyalists, after their capture a year ago, Human Rights Watch says. It calls for an investigation and prosecution of those responsible for what they slam as war crime.

The 50-page report "Death of a Dictator: Bloody Vengeance in Sirte" details the last hours of Muammar Gaddafi’s life on October 20, 2011, when he was caught trying to leave the city with his remaining supporters.

HRW admits difficulty in reconstructing the final days of Libya’s ex-leader since “he was surrounded by a small circle of trusted confidants and bodyguards, most of whom were killed in the attempted escape from Sirte,” stated the report.

The report relies heavily on interviews with Mansour Dhao, a senior security official and head of the pro-Gaddafi People's Guard, and other surviving witnesses of the event. The interviews took place in Libya two days after Gaddafi’s death.

Capture, abuse, murder

Gaddafi is said to have fled Tripoli with a handful of his trustful men in the end of August to his hometown of Sirte, where he “spent most of his time reading the Koran and praying,” Dhao told HRW.

“His communications with the world were cut off. There was no communication, no television, no news,” he added.

On October 20, Gadaffi’s son Mutassim deemed the situation unsafe and organized a 50-vehicle convoy for all to flee the city in the morning. The convoy consisted of 250 people, including civilians who supported Gaddafi.

As the cars were trying to make their getaway they were struck by a NATO air-fired missile, which exploded next to the car carrying Gaddafi. In defense, the convoy turned on to a dirt road, but was pinned down by militia fighters and then further bombed by NATO fighter jets.

After the bombings Gaddafi, accompanied by 10 other people, including his bodyguards, tried to take shelter by a drainage pipe, but was once again attacked by militia.

One of Gaddafi’s bodyguards reportedly threw three grenades at the rebels, but one of the grenades hit a cement wall and bounced back, injuring Gaddafi and leading to his capture.

“As soon as the militia fighters had custody of Gaddafi, they began abusing him. Blood was already gushing from the shrapnel wound in his head. As he was being led to the main road, a militiaman stabbed him in his anus with what appears to have been a bayonet, causing another rapidly bleeding wound,” described the report.

Video clips taken of the capture suggest that after enduring abuses Gaddafi was shot by militia fighters.

Report suggests that rebels took “bloody revenge” against Gaddafi and his loyal supporters in light of the eight-month civil war.

An HRW team on the ground counted that 103 pro-Gaddafi supporters died during that escape. Half of those were killed by NATO bombings, and the other half was either killed in combat or executed.

On top of that, 140 Gaddafi loyalists were taken prisoner, but instead of being transferred to prison authorities, 66 of them were executed in a nearby hotel.

Gaddafi’s son Mutassim was also captured alive, according to YouTube videos taken by his captors. However, by the afternoon of the same day, Mutassim was dead with a large new wound in his throat, suggesting he was murdered, HRW concluded.

“The throat wound thus must have been inflicted after the videos of a captured Mutassim were recorded, strongly indicating that he was killed in the custody of his captors just hours after he was detained.”

HRW points out that “these killings apparently comprise the largest documented execution of detainees committed by anti-Gaddafi forces during the eight-month conflict in Libya. The execution of persons in custody is a war crime.”

Libya’s powerless authority

HRW also accuses Libyan transitional government of lack of control and unity for failing to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible for the killings in Sirte, a year after the incident.

“To some extent, the failure of Libya’s authorities to investigate shows their continuing lack of control over the heavily armed militias, and the urgent need to bring Libya’s numerous militias under the full control of the new authorities.”

UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) have already been calling upon Libya to investigate Gaddafi’s death back in October 2011.

ICC had spoken out that there were strong indications Gaddafi was killed in custody, yet it left things be by letting Libya to investigate on its own.

Libya announced it had created a committee to look into circumstances of death. However, there has not been a proper update into the investigation in just under a year.

Back in January, Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha hired Nick Kaufman, an Israeli lawyer, to convince the International Criminal Court to investigate the full circumstances of her father’s death, arguing that time for a proper probe is running out.

“[The investigation] would involve forensic analysis of the crime scene, ballistic analysis of the crime scene, it would involve taking detailed statements from objective and independent witnesses,” Kaufman told RT. And with time memories deteriorate, people forget, and evidence goes missing.

Yet Aisha’s efforts failed to yield results.

When HRW contacted Libya government imploring them to take action, local authorities stated that all murders were the result of Gaddafi regime’s “dictatorship” and that rebels were defending themselves. However, they failed to account for those evident executions.

In Syria, mortars kill 21 in Damascus refugee camp

Mortars rained down on a crowded marketplace in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital, killing 21 people as regime forces and rebels clashed on the southern outskirts of Damascus, activists said today.

The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights, which reported the deaths, said the shells hit Yarmouk camp Thursday as shoppers were buying food for the evening meal. The activists would not speculate on who was firing.

"We don’t know where the mortars came from, whether they were from the Syrian regime or not the Syrian regime," said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Observatory. He added they could also have been strays from the fighting in nearby Tadamon neighborhood.

The state news agency blamed the bombardment on "terrorist mercenaries" - a term the government uses for rebel fighters - and said they had been chased away by security forces.

Government troops, however, have in the past attacked the camp, home to nearly 150,000 Palestinians and their descendants driven from their homes by the war surrounding Israel’s 1948 creation. Palestinian refugees in Syria have tried to stay out of the 17-month old uprising but with Yarmouk nestled among neighborhoods sympathetic to the rebels, its residents were eventually drawn into the fighting.

Yarmouk’s younger inhabitants have also been moved by the Arab Spring’s calls for greater freedoms and have joined protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime- and have died during demonstrations when Syrian troops fired on them.

With the civil war in Syria getting increasingly vicious, chances for a diplomatic solution to the conflict were fading after the resignation Thursday of Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria. Annan cited divisions within the Security Council preventing a united approach to stop the fighting.

The U.N. General Assembly was preparing to vote Friday on a new Arab-sponsored resolution condemning Syria’s use of heavy weapons to crush the uprising that has killed an estimated 19,000 people since it began on March 2011.

The resolution - which like all General Assembly resolutions is unenforceable - is expected to denounce Syria for unleashing tanks, artillery, helicopters and warplanes on the people of Aleppo and Damascus, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control.

The attack on the Palestinian camp came as clashes raged overnight between rebels and government forces in the nearby Damascus suburb of Tadamon, which was also bombed by army Thursday, sending plumes of black smoke over the city.

The Observatory also reported shelling of the southwestern suburb of Jdaidat Artouz, where dozens of bodies were found after government forces swept through on Wednesday.

Syria’s civil war, which had raged across much of the country, came to the capital and northeastern city of Aleppo, Syria’s main commercial hub in July.

A rebel assault and revolt in Damascus two weeks ago was vigorously crushed by government forces, but pockets of resistance and sympathetic neighborhoods remain. Sporadic clashes and shelling also continue in Aleppo, especially the rebel bastion of Salaheddine as rebels and government forces hold different parts of that city. On Thursday, the rebels even deployed a captured tank against the regime and briefly shelled an air force base outside Aleppo.

The U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous warned of a major government assault on Aleppo in the coming days to retake the rebel held neighborhoods.

"The focus is now on Aleppo, where there has been a considerable build-up of military means, and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start," he told reporters in New York late Thursday after briefing the Security Council on his trip to Syria.

French Nazi-hunter doubts suspect Csatary will face courts

Photo taken on July 16, 2012 shows the balcony of Dr Csatary L., alias Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, on the last floor of a Budapest building. The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre confirmed on July 15, 2012 that Laszlo Csatary, accused of complicity in the killings of 15,700 Jews, had been tracked down to the Hungarian capital.

Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld said today he doubted Hungarian authorities would prosecute Laszlo Csatary, a 97-year-old accused of complicity in the killings of 15,700 Jews and tracked down in Budapest.

"I am not sure there will be legal action taken with this conservative government" of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Klarsfeld, a French lawyer and Nazi hunter, told AFP.

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre confirmed Sunday that Csatary, who in 1948 was condemned to death by a Czech court after a trial held in his absence, had been tracked to the Hungarian capital.

Hungarian authorities said they were conducting an investigation.

The centre identified Csatary as its "No. 1 Most Wanted suspect", but Klarsfeld said he had "never heard" of him.

"In my opinion he did not have major responsibilities, he must have been a stooge," Klarsfeld said, adding that the only reason he would be at the top of the list is because so few Nazi war criminals remain.

"Thirty years ago, he would have been 3,500th on the list," he said.

The Wiesenthal Centre has urged Hungarian prosecutors to put Csatary on trial, saying he served during World War II as a senior Hungarian police officer in the Slovakian city of Kosice, then under Hungarian rule.

He is accused of being complicit in the deportations of thousands of Jews from Kosice and its environs to the Auschwitz death camp in the spring of 1944.

He had earlier fled to Canada and had worked as an art dealer using a false identity, before being unmasked in 1995 and forced to flee.