It sounded like the most far-fetched
propaganda claim - a Syrian rebel commander who cut out the heart of a fallen
enemy soldier, and ate it before a cheering crowd of his men.
The story turned out to be true in its most important aspect - a ritual
demonstration of cannibalism - though when I met the commander, Abu Sakkar, in
Syria last week, he seemed hazy on the details.
"I really don't remember," he says, when I ask if it was the man's heart, as
reported at the time, or liver, or a piece of lung, as a doctor who saw the
video said. He goes on: "I didn't bite into it. I just held it for show."
The video says otherwise. It is one of the most gruesome to emerge from
Syria's civil war. In it, Abu Sakkar stands over an enemy corpse, slicing into
the flesh.
"It looks like you're carving him a Valentine's heart," says one of his men,
raucously. Abu Sakkar picks up a bloody handful of something and declares: "We
will eat your hearts and your livers you soldiers of Bashar the dog."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23190533