The Associated Press, 23 February 2016 – War crimes are “rampant” in Syria, and the conflict has become “a multisided proxy war steered from abroad by an intricate network of alliances,” U.N. investigators said in a new report Monday.
In a swipe at the U.S., Russia and their allies, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said the international powers and regional countries ostensibly pushing for a peaceful solution are the same nations that “continue to feed the military escalation.”
The new report came as U.S. officials said the U.S. and Russia had agreed on a new “cessation of hostilities” in Syria that will take effect on Saturday. A similar cessation announced Feb. 11 and set to begin last week did not take place, while Russian airstrikes continued to support a Syrian government offensive in the northern province of Aleppo.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, chair of the commission established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, enthusiastically welcomed efforts launched in Vienna and Munich to find a political solution to the conflict, which will enter its sixth year in March with over 250,000 people killed.
The U.N. investigators warned that “the fractured Syrian state is on the brink of collapse” and said there is a growing risk of “internationalization of the conflict.”
Crimes against humanity continue to be committed by government forces and the ISIS extremist group, their report said.