⁍ Turkey must rein in Syrian rebels it supports in northern Syria who may have carried out kidnappings, torture and looting of civilian property, U.N. war crimes investigators said.

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⁍ The panel also said transfers of Syrian nationals detained by the opposition Syrian National Army to Turkish territory for prosecution may amount to the war crime of unlawful deportation.

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⁍ In a report covering the first half of 2020, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria said assassinations and rapes of civilians by all sides, marked by ‘sectarian undertones’, were on the rise in the conflict that began in 2011.

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– A UN report out Tuesday warns that assassinations and rapes of civilians by all sides in the Syrian conflict are on the rise, Reuters reports. The report from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria says assassinations and rapes of civilians by all sides, marked by “sectarian undertones,” are on the rise in the six-year conflict that began in 2011. “In Afrin, Ras al Ain and the surrounding areas, the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army may have committed the war crimes of hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, and rape,” says Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the commission. Turkey supports the Syrian National Army, which is part of the rebel group known as the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist group. Turkey seized the border town of Ras al Ain last year in an offensive to push back Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters, which Ankara views as a terrorist group. “Whilst we can’t say Turkey is in charge of them and issues orders and has command control over them, we think that it could use its influence much more to bring them into check and certainly to pressure them to desist from the violations being committed and to investigate them,” says panel member Hanny Megally.