GENEVA, Switzerland, March 18 (UPI) -- Islamic rebels carried out mass executions of detainees in Syria, U.N. human rights investigators said in a report released Tuesday.
The 12-page report listed several incidents that blamed the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
The report also criticized government forces, accusing them of increasing the use of indiscriminate weapons, such as barrel-bombs, against civilians.
The report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria was released before a debate at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, the BBC reported. It contained what investigators called the "most egregious violations" of human rights committed from Jan. 20 to March 10.
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Ahead of a coordinated attack in January by between Western-backed and Islamic rebel groups on Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant strongholds, Islamic State fighters "conducted mass executions of detainees, thereby perpetrating war crimes", the U.N. report said.
The number killed as well as allegations of mass graves connected to these executions remain under investigation.
Also in January, at Aleppo's children's hospital used by the Islamic State as its headquarters, a guard began removing specific detainees from their cells, the report said. They were taken outside and killed in what was described as a nearby "execution field."
U.N. investigators also reported government forces amped up their campaign of using barrel bombs -- explosive-filled cylinders or oil barrels -- onto densely populated residential districts of Aleppo.
"Survivors commonly spoke about seeing bodies without limbs or heads," the report said.
The report said denial of food, water, electricity and medical help were commonplace in Syria now and people were starving to death in besieged towns and in detention centers.
Brazilian diplomat and legal scholar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who led the commission of inquiry, said the panel identified those suspected of committing war crimes and added their names to a list, the BBC said. The suspects include leaders of Syrian intelligence agencies, those in charge of detention facilities where torture occurs, military commanders, and leaders of rebel groups and pro-government militia, among others.
