New Syria video emerges

The video's release comes ahead of a meeting between President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the conflict. Distributed by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the video shows a masked man allegedly from the jihadist al-Nusra Front reading out a death sentence as he stands behind a row of bound and blindfolded men kneeling in a desert area.

"The Shariah court of the al-Nusra Front in the eastern district of Deir al-Zour has sentenced these apostate soldiers to be killed for the massacres they have committed against our brothers and children in Syria," the man says. He walks the line of prisoners, shooting each in the back of the head. The men around him shout, "God is great."

Both sides have reported executions in Syria's two-year civil war, which has killed at least 70,000 people, according to conservative UN estimates.

‘Outrage'

Tuesday's resolution at the UN called for a political transition in Syria and expressed "outrage at the increasing death toll." It passed on Wednesday by 107 votes to 12 with 59 abstentions in the 193-member assembly - less support than a previous measure had seen, passing with 133 votes in favor, 12 against and 31 abstentions.

Russia opposed the resolution, criticizing references in the text to the opposition Syrian National Coalition, welcomed in the resolution as "effective representative interlocutors needed for a transition." China, Syria, Iran and North Korea were among others to oppose the resolution, while those abstaining included Italy, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, Israel, India and Indonesia.

Before the vote, Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin wrote to all 193 UN members, saying that support for the resolution would be "a serious blow to all attempts to bring the Syrian sides to the negotiating table."

mkg/jm (AFP, Reuters, dpa)