Foreign extremists are exacerbating the conflict in Syria by joining the fighting in growing numbers, the UN commission investigating human rights abuses in the country warned Monday dpa reported
"Such elements tend to push anti-government fighters towards more radical positions," the panel's chairman, Paulo Pinheiro, said at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"The commission confirmed the increasing presence of foreign elements, including Jihadist militants, in Syria," he reported.
He also noted that violence between Sunni Muslims on one side and Shias and Alawites on the other was escalating.
In his report, Pinheiro stressed that government forces and its allied militias had committed more serious war crimes and human rights violations than the rebels.
"Gross violations of human rights have grown in number, in pace and in scale," he said.
In areas that the government has been shelling and has cordoned off, such as the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, there were accounts of "civilians barely managing to survive." dpa al npr Author: Albert Otti