A Syrian rebel militia leader who filmed cutting the heart and organs out of a regime soldier’s body and putting it in his mouth has defended his actions as legitimate vengeance.
Mutilating the corpse, Khaled al-Hamad, known by the pseudonym Abu Sakkar, handed an instant propaganda victory to the Syrian government, which accused the West of ignoring rebel atrocities.
The video purported to show him cutting the lungs out of a soldier’s corpse before apparently eating a small piece of the organ. “I swear to God we will eat your hearts, Alawite soldiers of Bashar the dog,” he said, referring to supporters of President Bashar al-Assad from the minority Alawite sect.
Speaking to Time magazine, he said he had no regrets about taking revenge – “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” – after finding images of regime abuses on the dead soldier’s mobile phone. (Syrian Truth / Facebook)