Syria: videos of Turkey-backed militias show 'potential war crimes'

Calls for war crimes investigations into the conduct of militias used by Turkey in Syria are mounting after a spate of new videos depicting Ankara-linked fighters torturing captives and mutilating dead bodies.

Footage of atrocities allegedly committed by Arab forces in northern Syria is circulating widely across Kurdish regions of the country, sparking fears of renewed fighting and a deepening ethnic divide in the region, even as a tenuous ceasefire begins to settle.

A video purportedly posted earlier this week by one Turkish-supported group shows a captured Kurdish fighter being dragged by the neck as his captors threaten him with beheading. Another shows dead Kurdish fighters being cut with a knife as Arab combatants jeer.

Kurdish officials, along with the US special envoy for Syria , James Jeffrey, have condemned the videos, with the latter describing them as “potential war crimes” while the Kurds insist they represent ethnic cleansing.

Up to 170,000 Kurds have fled a battle zone along the Turkish border after a weeklong operation to push Kurds further into Syria.