Rebel atrocities in Syria show the rebels' true colours, and given Assad a boost in the propaganda war

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Sometime on Tuesday four dazed and bleeding men were dragged, in their underpants, in to what appears to be a school yard. A cartoon of Mickey Mouse was on the wall. To chants of 'Free Army forever! Be ready for us Assad' the men were mown down with AK-47s. The firing lasted for a minute. Someone with a mobile phone camera zoomed in to check that the victims were dead.

The victims were mostly from the Berri clan, who are said to be close to the Assad government. They may have been local gangsters running a pro-government militia. Regardless of that, the four men who were shot clearly did not get any kind of trial. Grudgingly, spokesmen for the Free Syrian Army admitted that no orders had been issued to shoot these men and that what happened was 'unacceptable'.

These killings were so ghastly that they finally made it on to last night's BBC 10'o Clock News. Since the rebels and the Assad regime are engaged in a sophisticated propaganda war, aimed at the general public in the world outside, we could say that the score went from Rebels 10-Assad 0 to about Rebels 10: Assad 1 last night.

Execution: Half naked, unarmed and trembling with fear, a group of captured pro-Assad soldiers are made to kneel to face a wall in Syria's war-torn Aleppo

Masked fighters: Colonel Abdel-Jabbar al-Oqaidi, who defected from the army six months ago, told Reuters that more than 3,000 rebel fighters were in Aleppo

I hold no brief for the Assad regime, which runs a ghastly repressive police state in Syria. Like Iran it is also a state sponsor of international terrorism, not least in neighbouring Lebanon.

But we should be realistic in recognising that the rebels are not white as the driven snow. The Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has done more than most to draw attention to the arrival in Deir el-Zour province near Iraq of Al Qaeda fighters, whose chief expertise is in making improvised explosive devices. Personally I was chilled to read one Al Qaeda leader say 'the Free Syrian Army (the rebel force) lacks the ability to plan and lacks military experience. That is what AQ can bring. They have an organsiation that all countries have acknowledged'. They can also pull in all the gun-toting flotsam and jetsam they like, from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Jordan, not to mention Birmingham.

  More... Chilling amateur video shows Syrian rebels execute Government soldiers as Assad tells troops 'the battle for Aleppo will determine our fate'

Today, David Cameron will try to persuade Russia's President Putin to relax his country's support for the Assad regime in Syria, apparently in the margins of an Olympic judo competition. Since Putin is very much a 'man's man' and impervious to soft humanitarian argument from a country he fundamentally despises and mistrusts, I doubt the British Prime Minister will make much headway. Russia will probably opt to reinforce failure, for reasons I have given in several earlier postings, for I suspect the momentum is not with Assad.

      More from Michael Burleigh...   Horrific - but sending troops to Syria would be a catastrophe 26/04/13   The posturing boy despot who could blunder into apocalypse 04/04/13   How typical of the Left to idolise a despot who gloried in attacking America and Britain 06/03/13   Deadly message from one-eyed master of terror behind the heavily-armed 'Signed-In-Blood-Battalion' 18/01/13   What makes a doctor become a terrorist? 27/08/12   Why I'm convinced Israel will bomb Iran in weeks: Netanyahu is running out of patience and is 'closer than ever' to launching a strike 24/08/12   Syria's chemical munitions: The least of the problems surrounding the country 23/08/12   In Pakistan, an illiterate child has been jailed for unknowingly burning the Quran. Where are the celebrities protesting for her? 21/08/12   Dewsbury to Damascus: The danger of young British Muslims learning to wage Jihad in Syria 16/08/12   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Cameron may imagine that because he and Sarkozy got away with it in Libya, he can work the same 'magic' in Syria, regardless of the fact that religious groups are hopelessly jumbled up there, which was not true of overwhelmingly Sunni Libya. Gaddafi's Libya had also isolated itself from the surrounding Arab world, and was reliant on mercenaries from sub-Saharan African countries like Chad or Niger. Manifestly a lot of Syrians are still prepared to fight for Assad, and a lot more are just watching nervously which way the wind blows.

What happens to Syria directly impacts on several neighbouring states: Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel, not to speak of Iran. There is also the free floating potential of jihadist groups, who have no interest in preserving secular states like Syria at all. Their sole concern is to establish safe operating bases.

I sincerely hope that some naive compulsion to back any 'rebel' - regardless of who they are, or what they do - is not driving western policy, which should be solely focused on easing Assad out, and ensuring that people who do not shoot captives under cartoons of Mickey Mouse do not come to power. Where, one might ask, is a Prime Minister capable of defining and sticking up for Britain's national interests?