The Syrian government is using local militia groups, known an Popular committees to carry out mass killings, said the UN Commission of Inquiry on Monday.
Presenting its findings to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Commission said:
"In a disturbing and dangerous trend, mass killings allegedly perpetrated by Popular Committees have at times taken on sectarian overtones."
"Some appear to have been trained and armed by the government."
The Popular Committees were also "alleged to be participating in house-to-house searches, identity checks, mass arrests, looting and acting as informants," the report added.
Paulo Pinheiro, who leads the UN Commission said that the targeting of hospitals, the arrest of medical staff and the denouncing of medical care, was a "tactic of war", adding:
"Indiscriminate and widespread shelling, the regular bombardment of cities, mass killing and the deliberate firing on civilian targets have come to characterize the daily lives of civilians in Syria,"
