Al-Qaeda-linked fighters this week apologized for the mistaken beheading of a fellow Syrian rebel. The fighter’s beheading was carried out under the assumption he supported Syrian President al-Assad.
The victim of the beheading was Mohammed Fares, an anti-Assad fighter, who was injured during a battle with pro-Assad forces, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told CNN.
Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which is reportedly linked to al-Qaeda, posted a statement saying the execution was a mistake. They asked for “understanding and forgiveness” after the beheading, reported the Daily Telegraph.
“We call on God to accept Mohammed Fares into his Kingdom and to forgive his brothers that sought to rid us of the enemies of God and our enemies,” the ISIS’s Omar Al-Qahatani said, reported CNN.
Al-Qahatani said that Fares purportedly shouted the names of two revered figures in Shia Islam when he was seeking medical attention at a field hospital, forcing the mostly Sunni rebels to believe he was a pro-Assad fighter, who are mostly Shia or belong to the Alawite sect, which is considered an offshoot.
In a video that was posted online, rebel fighters are seen holding a man’s head before a crowd of people in Aleppo, reported The Telegraph.
“If they (al-Assad’s army) enter they will not distinguish between supporters and opponents. I swear they will rape the men before the woman,” another jihadi fighter continues in the amateur video,” a man said in the video. “He is an Iraqi Shiite volunteer fighter in Bashar al-Assad’s army,” he added, while holding a knife.
Fares belonged to militant group Ahrar al-Sham, which fights alongside the ISIS.
A spokesperson with the ISIS told the Telegraph that they will be forgiven for accidentally killing a non-infidel, as they put it. The spokesperson said Fares was killed because he believed he was captured by pro-Assad militants and asked them to kill him, resulting in his allies carrying out his execution.
The BBC reported that videos of beheadings and other executions in Syria are uploaded online on a daily basis, intended to strike fear into pro-Assad fighters and supporters.
Rights groups have panned the ISIS and other Syrian opposition groups for carrying out torture and other war crimes, including executions of alleged government soldiers, the shooting of a 15-year-old boy for purported blasphemy, and the beating of women for behavior that they think violates Sharia law.
According to Human Rights Watch, or HRW, the ISIS is led by an Iraqi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who aligned his group with al-Qaeda earlier in 2013.
In October, the rights group published a report saying that ISIS was holding between 110 and 120 hostages and wanted to exchange some of the hostages for three Libyans and 4 million Syrian pounds ($USD 35,400). The group also wanted locals in the town of “Sleibeh al-Hamboushieh to organize a protest against the government,” said HRW.
In recent months, the ISIS has strength in northern Syria, including in Aleppo--formerly the country’s main commercial hub--and are imposing their strict interpretation of Sharia law on locals in the region.
“ISIS is the strongest group in Northern Syria -- 100% -- and anyone who tells you anything else is lying,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights spokesperson Rami Abdul Rahman told CNN in a report earlier this month.
