One
eyewitness who lives in the area and was contacted by TIME a week after
the beheadings said that the executioners were from ISIS,
Witness to a Syrian Execution: “I Saw a Scene of Utter Cruelty”
A
young Syrian man kneels blindfolded before anti-regime rebels publicly
executed him in the town of Keferghan, near Aleppo, on August 31, 2013.
All wars are vicious, but the civil war in Syria seems every day to set new standards for brutality.
As
the fighting rages in its third year, increasing numbers of atrocities
are committed by soldiers and fighters from forces loyal to the regime
of President Bashar Assad, as well as armed rebels and Islamic militants
from the numerous, loosely aligned groups opposing Assad.
The
violence is frequently sectarian in nature, with fighters claiming they
act in defense of their faith, be it Sunni, Alawite, Shiite or any of
the other sects that contribute to Syria’s religious landscape.
The
perpetrators of atrocities themselves often use digital cameras or
smartphones to photograph or film their acts of torture and murder,
uploading the images to the Internet.
These images and videos are used for propaganda, and their authenticity is often impossible to verify.
It
is very rare that a group of fighters from either side gives a
professional photojournalist from a country outside Syria full and
unfettered access to chronicle an atrocity as it unfolds.
The images above are products of that access.
What
follows is a harrowing series of photographs of Islamic militants
publicly executing, by decapitation, a young Syrian in the town of
Keferghan, near Aleppo, on August 31, 2013.
Because of the danger
in reporting inside Syria, it was not possible to confirm the identity
or political affiliation of the victim.
Nor are we certain about
the motivation of his killers. One eyewitness who lives in the area and
was contacted by TIME a week after the beheadings said that the
executioners were from ISIS, an Al-Qaeda franchise operating in Syria
and Iraq.
TIME obtained the images exclusively from a photographer
who was recently in Syria. This decapitation was the last of four
executions he documented that day.
TIME has agreed not to publish
the photographer’s name, to protect him from repercussions when he
returns to Syria. What follows is an edited account of his experience:
The
man was brought in to the square. His eyes were blindfolded. I began
shooting pictures, one after the other. It was to be the fourth
execution that day I would photograph.
I was feeling awful;
several times I had been on the verge of throwing up. But I kept it
under control because as a journalist I knew I had to document this, as I
had the three previous beheadings I had photographed that day, in three
other locations outside Aleppo.
The crowd began cheering.
Everyone was happy. I knew that if I tried to intervene I would be taken
away, and that the executions would go ahead.
I knew that I wouldn’t be able to change what was happening and I might put myself in danger.
I
saw a scene of utter cruelty: a human being treated in a way that no
human being should ever be treated. But it seems to me that in two and a
half years, the war has degraded people’s humanity.
On this day
the people at the execution had no control over their feelings, their
desires, their anger. It was impossible to stop them.
I don’t know
how old the victim was but he was young. He was forced to his knees.
The rebels around him read out his crimes from a sheet of paper. They
stood around him.
The young man was on his knees on the ground, his hands tied. He seemed frozen.
Two
rebels whispered something into his ear and the young man replied in an
innocent and sad manner, but I couldn’t understand what he said because
I don’t speak Arabic.
At the moment of execution the rebels
grasped his throat. The young man put up a struggle. Three or four
rebels pinned him down.
The man tried to protect his throat with
his hands, which were still tied together. He tried to resist but they
were stronger than he was and they cut his throat.
They raised his head into the air. People waved their guns and cheered. Everyone was happy that the execution had gone ahead.
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