Assad’s soldiers executed on camera by Syrian rebels

Video footage has emerged which shows the moment seven of President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian soldiers are executed on camera by rebels fighting to overthrow the regime. 

The soldiers are stripped, bound and pushed to the ground where a number of rebels stand over them pointing guns at their bodies. Some bear vicious injuries on their backs and arms.   

Just before they are killed, the ring-leader Abdul Samad Issa - known as 'The Uncle', recites a poem before he fires the first bullet.

For fifty years, they are companions to corruption', he says. 'We swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.'
At the end of the footage, the bodies of the soldiers are dumped in a well while one of the gunmen looks into the camera and smiles.
It is believed Issa has the support of around 300 fighters willing to carry out the executions of captured soldiers.

The 37-year-old, a trader and livestock herder before the war, formed the group at the start of the uprising using his own money to buy weapons and pay for his own soldiers' expenses. 

                                          

                                  The bodies of the soldiers are dumped in a well after they are shot dead by the rebels

His father was opposed to President Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria’s current president, but in 1982, he disappeared.

Issa believes he was killed during a 27-day government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood which sparked his hatred of the government.

Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of the issue of radicalised rebels which he said made up 15 to 20 per cent of the opposition. 

Most of the concerns are centred around two groups which are known to have ties with Al Qaeda -
the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.