Syrian troops in Aleppo
Syrian troops in AleppoAFP photo

The United Nations has said that the regime of Bashar al-Assad is responsible for eight massacres of civilians over the last year and a half.

The UN commission charged with investigating human rights abuses in Syria said today (Wednesday), "The intentional mass killing and identity of the perpetrators were confirmed to the commission's evidentiary standards."

The Commission had been working to shed light on the causes of hundreds of deaths and corroborate the testimonies of some 2,000 refugees  it had interviewed about claims of what it described were "mass intentional killings."

The report pointed to nine massacres that it said it knew had taken place since March alone, blaming one of them on Syrian rebels.

Earlier this summer United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described one of the incidents in question as yet another “shocking and sickening” massacre of civilians in Syria, adding: "Each day seems to bring new additions to the grim catalogue of atrocities: assaults against civilians; brutal human rights violations; mass arrests; and execution-style killings of whole families."

During the process of their investigations, the United Nations also said that unarmed U.N. monitors came under fire as they attempted to reach the scene of one mass killing, in Al-Qubair and Kafr Zeta, near the province of Hama.

As U.S. President Barack Obama seemed to put plans for a strike on Syria on hold today in light of a Russian-led plan that would see the regime cede its chemical weapons arsenal to the international community, a commander in the Free Syrian Army deplored the initiative saying that only the removal of President Bashar al Assad would help the people of Syria.