A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Jan Klimkowski]

The West is desperate to arm these "freedom fighters".

The reporting frame is from the right-wing Daily Mail, but the murder of the 14-year-old boy clearly seems to have happened.

There are photos at the link.

Islamic group shoot dead Syrian 14-year-old boy in front of his parents for blasphemy after saying 'he wouldn't even give the Prophet a free coffee'

Mohammad Qataa was shot in the face and neck by Al Qaeda-linked gunmen
Teenager was heard arguing while working as street vendor selling coffee
Britain has been looking to lift embargo on shipping weapons to rebels
Twin suicide blasts kill at least 14, including police officers, in Damascus
Russian President Vladimir Putin blames the West for Middle East chaos

By Simon Tomlinson

PUBLISHED: 08:46, 11 June 2013 | UPDATED: 17:25, 11 June 2013

An Islamic group shot dead a Syrian 14-year-old boy in front of his parents for blasphemy after overhearing him say he 'wouldn't even give the Prophet a free coffee.'

Mohammad Qataa was shot in the face and neck a day after being seized by members of an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A photo released by the Observatory showed Qataa's face with his mouth and jaw bloodied and destroyed as well as a bullet wound in his neck.

A picture taken from a video uploaded on YouTube by the Aleppo Media Centre allegedly shows 14-year-old Mohammad Qataa (right) who was killed by insurgents for apparently insulting the Prophet Mohammad

An image grab taken from Syria's official television channel al-Ikhbariya reportedly shows the body of 14-year old Mohammad after he was shot dead

Today it emerged Qataa was working as a street vendor in the al-Shaa district of Aleppo when three members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a militant group that started off known as the Nusra Front, overheard him arguing with a friend over a bill.

It is thought the boy had given his friend a coffee which the friend wanted to pay for later.

'Mohammad Qataa was working at his street trolley and remarked to his friend that even if the Prophet Mohammad came down he would not give him credit,' said Rami Abdulrahman, who heads the UK-based human rights group, told The Times.

The three fighters overheard and accused the teenager of blasphemy and insulting the prophet.

The gunmen took Qataa on Saturday and brought him back alive in the early hours of Sunday to his wooden stand, with whiplash marks visible on his body.

This picture from a video released by the Aleppo Media Centre reportedly shows Mohammad's parents who watched as their son was shot dead in the street by an Al Qaeda-linked group

A image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on June 10, 2013 shows the father of the 15-year old boy, Mohammad Qataa

Qataa's parents said the youth had taken part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Aleppo

The gunmen belonged to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a militant group that started off known as the Al-Nusra Front (file picture)

U.N. LOOKING TO RESETTLE 10,000 SYRIAN REFUGEES IN GERMANY

The United Nations refugee agency is talking to Germany about resettling up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Tuesday.

UNHCR was also working with other European governments to find ways to resettle some of the 1.6million Syrians who have fled the country, a number the United Nations expects to reach 3.45million by the end of 2013, Edwards said.

The UN agency plans to hold a meeting on the subject with governments around the end of June in Geneva, but details and the participants were not yet known, he said.

Specific numbers had not yet been discussed with other countries.

However, resettlement is only an option for the most vulnerable cases and the bulk of the refugee burden will still fall on four of Syria's neighbours: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

People gathered around him and a member of the fighting brigade said: 'Generous citizens of Aleppo, disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the prophet is a polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this.'

'He then fired two bullets from an automatic rifle in view of the crowd and in front of the boy's mother and father, and got into a car and left,' the report said.

Abdulrahman said the boy's mother had pleaded with the killers, whose Arabic suggested they might not be Syrian, not to shoot her son.

'The Observatory cannot ignore these crimes, which only serve the enemies of the revolution and the enemies of humanity,' said Rami Abdulrahman.

Qataa's parents said the youth had taken part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Aleppo.

Since last year, large parts of the city have fallen under the control of Islamist brigades, including the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, as well as other rebel units.

Britain and France worked together last month to lift a European Union embargo on arms shipments to Syrian rebels, giving them the flexibility to send weapons to forces against President Bashar Assad.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that no such decision had yet been taken and promised for the first time to give lawmakers a vote in parliament if and when it was.

But Prime Minister David Cameron's government is split on the issue, with some ministers fearing such a move could worsen the bloodshed and drag Britain into a protracted conflict.

It also raises concerns that weapons could be used by Islamist extremists to commit atrocities like this most recent execution.

And in a surprising development today, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted al-Assad could have avoided the bloody civil war by responding more quickly to demands for change.

In comments to Russia's English-language state television network RT, Putin repeated that Russia is not acting as an advocate for Assad but broadly blamed the West for violent upheaval in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, two suicide bombers hit a central Damascus square today, killing at least 14 people, activists and the state media reported.

Activists said one of the explosions took place inside the police station there and that many among the dead were policemen.
Syrians stands in front their restaurant after a twin suicide bombing struck the Al-Marja Square in Damascus

Syrians stands in front their restaurant after a twin suicide bombing struck the Al-Marja Square in Damascus

Activists said one of the explosions took place inside a police station, killing several officers

Syrian state TV quoted a security official as saying 14 people died in explosions caused by two 'terrorist' suicide bombers near a police station in the bustling Marjeh Square in the heart of the capital.

The official said another 31 were wounded.

The state-TV Ikhbariya TV station showed footage of broken shop facades and mangled cars in the central square as ambulance workers were seen carrying the wounded on stretchers.

The attacks in the capital are the first since government troops, backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, captured Qusair, a strategic town in the central province of Homs, the linchpin linking Damascus with the regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast.

Following the capture of Qusair, Syrian state-run media and the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV have said the regime is preparing an offensive reportedly named Operation Northern Storm to recapture Aleppo.