A/HRC/21/50 accompanied them during this operation. The informer guided them toward houses of activists and defectors. Whenever the informer pointed out the house of a defector, FSA fighter or opposition activist, the soldiers would loot and burn it. 7. Demonstrations occurred regularly in the village of Marayane (Idlib), one of which took place on 11 April 2012. A defector stated that on 12 April, he was with Government forces when they raided Marayane (Idlib) using T72 tanks, BMPs and 14.5 mm machine guns. Before entering the village his forces began shelling randomly in an effort to ―weaken the enemy.‖ Once inside the village, they burned more than 100 houses. He recalled specifically shelling two houses, ensuring they were razed to the ground. One belonged to the headmaster of the high school, while the other to an agricultural engineer. The defector presumed, but could not confirm, that the two men were suspected anti-Government fighters. The rest of the houses were looted by the soldiers and then shelled or burned. 8. Another interviewee stated that in Mare‘e (Aleppo) on 10 April 2012, Government forces burned 386 houses and some two hundred shops burned during the search operations. He added that all residents fled when they knew that military and security forces were about to raid their village. When people returned, they saw painted on the walls, ―from here Al-Assad forces passed; if you return, we will return,‖ and ―there is no God but Bashar al-Assad‖. 9. Thirteen individual accounts described widespread looting and destruction of property in Tal Rifat (Aleppo), Bayda and Jabal-az-Zawiyah (Idlib) in April 2012. When Government forces departed these villages after the attack, the inhabitants returned to find the electricity cut, crops destroyed, livestock killed, mosques and schools destroyed, money stolen and houses emptied of their furniture, jewellery, clothes and appliances. Shops had been looted completely and then destroyed either by burning or by shelling. Vehicles had been either stolen or destroyed. 10. Corroborated evidence was collected of pillaging, deliberate destruction and burning of property by pro-Government forces in Bab Amr (Homs), end of April 2012; Ablin (Idlib), 16 June 2012; Ibdita (Idlib), 21 February 2012; Jisr-esh-Shughour (Idlib), March 2012; Al Atarib (Aleppo), 15 February 2012; Taftanaz (Idlib) 4 and 5 April 2012; Sermin (Idlib), 22 March 2012; Azaz (Aleppo), April 2012; Dar‘a, June 2012; Hama, end of May and beginning of June 2012; al-Haffah (al-Ladhiqiyah), 13 June 2012; and Anadan (Aleppo), 7 April 2012. Legal conclusions 11. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Government forces and Shabbiha committed the war crime of pillage. The commission also determined that Government forces and Shabbiha engaged in the destruction and burning of property during house searches. II. Anti-Government armed groups 12. The commission received no reports of pillaging or destruction of property by antiGovernment armed groups, but lack of access to Syria hampered investigations in this regard. The Government provided information about crimes allegedly perpetrated by antiGovernment armed groups, including looting and vehicle theft, which the commission was unable to corroborate. Consequently, the commission has been unable to reach any findings with regard to the alleged pillaging, burning and destruction of property by antiGovernment armed groups. 101