Syrian children used as human shields, says UN report

Children in Syria have accused troops of using them as human shields, a UN report has revealed.

Some children said they had been forced to ride on tanks to stop attacks by opposition fighters, the report said.
The UN's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict said children were being tortured in detention and slaughtered in massacres.
Radhika Coomaraswamy told the BBC that her team had returned from Syria with "horrific" reports.
She said she had never seen a similar situation where children were not spared - and even targeted - in a conflict.

"Many former soldiers spoke about shooting into civilian areas, seeing children, young children being killed, and maimed," she said.
"We also had testimonies and saw children who had been tortured, and who carried the torture marks with them. We also heard of children being used - this was recounted to us by some children - of being put on tanks and being used as human shields so that the tanks would not be fired upon."
However, she also criticised the opposition Free Syrian Army for endangering children.
"For the first time we heard of children being recruited by the Free Syrian Army mainly in medical and service orientated jobs but still on the front line," she said.

'Shocked'

Ms Coomaraswamy said the suffering inflicted on children in Syria was unusual even for combat situations.

"We are really quite shocked. Killing and maiming of children in cross-fire is something we come across in many conflicts but this torture of children in detention, children as young as 10, is something quite extraordinary, which we don't really see in other places."

She said that in recent massacres children under the age of 10 had been summarily killed, adding: "Those kinds of things we don't see elsewhere."

The UN's annual report on children and armed conflict cited one attack on the village of Ayn l'Arouz in Idlib province on 9 March 2012.

It quoted a witness saying how several young children were forcibly taken from their homes and "used by soldiers and militia members as human shields, placing them in front of the windows of buses carrying military personnel into the raid on the village".

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US drone attack 'targeted al-Qaeda deputy'

A US drone strike on Monday in Pakistan targeted al-Qaeda's second-in-command Abu Yahya al-Libi, US officials say.

They say it is still unclear whether he was among those killed in the strike on a suspected militant compound in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
Two missiles by the unmanned aircraft killed 15 people, Pakistani officials say.
Pakistan's foreign ministry strongly condemned the strike, calling it "illegal", Reuters news agency reports.
'Major blow' A senior US official told the BBC that Libi was the target of Monday's morning strike in Hesokhel, to the east of Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan.
The first missile struck the compound, killing three militants, Pakistani security officials said. 

A second missile then killed 12 more militants who had arrived at the scene, they added.
If Libi's death is confirmed, it would be a "major blow to core of al-Qaeda", the US official told the BBC.

Washington believes that following Osama Bin Laden's death last year, Libi, an Islamic scholar from Libya, became al-Qaeda's second-in-command after Egyptian born Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Libi is reportedly in charge of day-to-day operations in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Libi was reported killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in 2009, but it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.
Pakistan's frontier tribal region is considered a hub of activity by al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
There have been eight US drone strikes in the past two weeks despite Pakistani demands for them to be stopped.

Kazakhstan court jails 13 over Zhanaozen riots

A court in Kazakhstan has jailed 13 people for their role in deadly riots last December in the remote desert oil town of Zhanaozen.

Thirty-seven defendants, mostly oil workers, were tried after seven months of industrial action ended in rioting.
At least 15 people were killed in the unrest and more than 100 injured.
The violence in Zhanaozen was the worst unrest seen in Kazakhstan since its independence from the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.
The 13 defendants were given sentences of up to seven years; 16 others received conditional sentences and the remaining defendants were either given amnesties or acquitted.
The hearings were conducted at a youth centre that had been turned into a makeshift courtroom in the Caspian port city of Aktau, about 150km (96 miles) west of Zhanaozen.

'Bottles thrown'

The BBC's Central Asia correspondent Rayhan Demytrie says the scenes in the courtroom where chaotic.
Relatives of the defendants reportedly threw plastic bottles at the judge, amid claims those accused were tortured during the investigation.
Five policemen tried separately for their role in the violence were jailed last week for up to seven years for abuse of power.
Witnesses say that police fired on and beat unarmed protesters, leading to the deaths of at least 15 people.
Security officials maintain they were acting in self defence.
The workers had been striking to demanding better pay and conditions, but the oil company responded by sacking them.
Correspondents say the violence has tarnished the country's image of stability, which has been carefully cultivated by President Nursultan Nazarbayev over the past two decades.
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