Future aid and armaments are now on the line for the Syrian Opposition after news emerged yesterday that a prominent Syrian rebel group had decapitated a 12-year-old Palestinian kid, Abdallah Issa, at the Handarat camp in northern Aleppo yesterday.
Nour al-Din al-Zinki, a supposed moderate faction of the Syrian Opposition is believed to have perpetrated the beheading.
The U.S State Department promised “consequences” if the gruesome video turns out to be genuine.
“If we can prove indeed what happened and this group [al-Zinki] was involved in it, it would give us pause about any assistance or frankly any further involvement”, U.S. official Mark Toner told reporters at a press briefing today.
“I can’t take what these consequences would be, but this certainly would give a pause and we’ll look at any affiliation or cooperation with this group,” he reiterated.
In a statement released by Nour al-Din al-Zinki, its leadership condemned the killing, saying it does not reflect the movement itself, but “an individual error”.
Lately, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been tying the noose around the final rebel road leading to Aleppo city – thus, the beheading could be seen as a sign of desperation before a full-blown siege of rebel-held Aleppo.
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