Just because it's not surprising doesn't mean it's any less disgusting.
Children were slaughtered, tortured, sexually attacked and used as human shields by pro-government Syrian forces, according to a damning United Nations report released late on Monday.
"Children were victims of killing and maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, by the Syrian Armed Forces, the intelligence forces, and the Shabbiha militia," the U.N.'s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said in a release issued along with the report.
The shabiha are a pro-government militia that recruits largely from the Alawite community- the same Muslim sect as President Bashar Assad. Sunnis, who make up the majority of the rebels, are an estimated 74 percent of the population.
