BEIRUT (AP) – With its missile strike on Shayrat air base in central Syria, Washington signaled that it had judged President Bashar Assad responsible for the horrific chemical weapons attack in northern Syria that drew international outrage last week. But it is not the first or even deadliest atrocity of the war. Rights groups and many Middle Eastern and Western nations say Assad is responsible for a litany of war crimes in the six years he and his supporters have struggled to extinguish a popular uprising and armed insurgency against his rule.
The violence started early on, with detentions, torture, and summary executions, and escalated to bombardment, massacres, sieges, and chemical warfare. Various monitors put the war’s toll at over 400,000 killed. The United Nations has recorded 5 million refugees from the conflict, and says about half the country’s population is displaced within Syria’s borders or abroad.
Assad has denied responsibility for all specific allegations of war crimes. He maintains his war is one against terror, though he acknowledges that civilians have sometimes been caught in the cross-fire.
Here are some of the 6-year-old war’s worst atrocities:
BARREL BOMBS