Syrian rebel videoed eating the heart of a soldier

In a ghastly video filmed in Syria, Free Syrian Army rebel commander, Abu Sakkar, was seen cutting organs out of a dead soldier and biting into his heart.

The video, which has been posted on the internet, shows Sakkar addressing the camera while standing over the dead body of a uniformed soldier holding his heart and liver in his hands.

He was filmed saying: “I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar, hopefully we will slaughter all of them [Alawites].”

Sakkar is a rebel commander of the Farouq Brigades, one of the units of the Free Syrian Army, but has formed his own battalion as the opposition fragments.

His men are seen as neither secular nor hardcore Islamists but oppose Alawites – the  minority offshoot of Shia Islam to which Syrian president Assad belongs.

The group has claimed responsibility for the act and said they would soon post another video clip that shows Sakkar sawing another Shabiha, or pro-government militiaman, with a saw.

The emergence of the video comes a day after British prime minister David Cameron announced that he would double military support to rebels.

The Syrian National Coalition has condemned the act as “horrific” and said that it would investigate and bring the perpetrator to justice.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have revealed figures that confirm at least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria’s two-year conflict,  41,000 of those dead are Alawites.

Aastha Gill