A/HRC/22/59 due to protracted and escalating fighting. The village is located near the largest Government military base in the area, a scout camp. The camp is located on the southern edge of AlMastomah. A Government checkpoint in Al-Tal borders Al-Mastomah to the north. 38. On 3 January 2013, FSA fighters from the neighbouring villages moved into AlMastomah and attacked the scout camp. After three days of intensive fighting, during which the village was heavily shelled by mortars, artilleries and tanks from the scout camp and alTal checkpoint, the FSA withdrew from the village. The majority of the residents fled from the shelling, with only a few remaining in the village. According to one interviewee, around 70 persons remained in the village, most of them elderly. 39. On 7 January 2013, in the early morning, Al-Mastomah came under attack by Government forces using shelling and ground troops. Prior to the offensive, Government forces had shelled the village from the scout camp and Al-Tal checkpoint for two hours. Reports from credible sources suggest that Shabbiha deployed together with the army. 40. An eyewitness stated that troops conducted house-to-house searches before establishing a base at a school on the eastern side of the village and set checkpoints around it. An eyewitness who returned to village after the raid, recounted how bodies of summary executed persons were collected and buried before dawn. The commission was able to examine video footages of the deceased before their burial. The footage shows bodies of women, children and elderly people among the deceased. It also appears that some of the bodies were executed in close quarters. 41. Government forces subjected Al-Mastomah to indiscriminate shelling, which caused the majority of the town’s residents to flee. Government forces regained control of AlMastomah after three days of clashes with the FSA. They entered the village and conducted house-to-house searches. The majority, if not all FSA fighters fled Al-Mastomah after three days of combat and their defeat by Government forces. The remaining civilians were made the target of the ground assault by Government troops, which, there are reasonable grounds to believe, executed civilians or persons hors de combat in close quarters. The video footage of those killed indicated that Government forces executed women, children and the elderly. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Government forces perpetrated the war crime of murder in Al-Mastomah. G. Incidents currently under investigation 42. Investigations into a massacre that is alleged to have taken place on Sad Street in Dara’a city in August and a massacre that is alleged to have taken place in Duma outside Damascus in October, are on-going. II. Anti-Government armed groups 43. Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions, which applies in armed conflicts not of an international character, prohibits the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognised as indispensable under international law. 44. Anti-Government armed groups exercise limited control over territory and population. The massacres perpetrated by anti-Government armed groups must be viewed in this context. GE.13-10627 51