20 Syrian soldiers executed in Aleppo (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

Two amateur videos were posted on YouTube on Monday showing what appear to be images of 20 dead Syrian soldiers, blindfolded and handcuffed. They were reportedly executed by rebel fighters in the northern city of Aleppo.

The video showed the men dressed in army clothes, sprawled along a road with their bloodied heads lying on a pavement. Men believed to be rebel fighters are then shown holding assault rifles calling the men “Assad’s dogs”. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the video. A man off camera, filming a car with the name of the brigade written on the bonnet, said “The Suleiman al-Farisi brigade killed several members from the (state) security”. The Suleiman al-Farisi brigade is one of a number of units from nearby Aleppo provinces, which have taken up arms against the Assad regime and pushed into the city itself. Rami Abdulrahman, head of the London based opposition watchdog, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters that four people in Aleppo had told him about the incident, which is believed to have happened on either Friday or Saturday. “The soldiers were from the Aleppo district of Sekenat Hanano but they were killed in the district of Sabaa Baharat,” he told Reuters by telephone. More than 27,300 people are believed to have died in an uprising to topple President Bashar al-Assad that has lasted more than 17 months. As the violence continues to rage the UN has reached a diplomatic impasse on Syria. The US and Russia disagree over a Russian proposal for a new UN Security Council resolution, which calls for a ceasefire and political transition which the US says has “no teeth”. In another attempt to try and stop the violence in Syria, the new UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi- who replaces Kofi Annan- has begun his first mission, by visiting Cairo. He is also due to visit Damascus, the Syrian capital, in a couple of days. He has said he faces a “very difficult mission”. But Editor in chief of the newspaper the Syrian Tribune, Dubai Mohamad, told RT that Brahimi might have a chance if he can persuade those countries supplying the rebels with weapons and money to stop, “Just like what we said regarding Annan, only if the countries backing the rebels and sending them weapons and money stop doing so, [then] we can have a peaceful resolution to the crisis. If Lakhdar Brahimi is capable of convincing these countries and I doubt it, then, yes, he has a chance,” he said.