Nusra Front rips out heart of rival faction fighter executed on the battlefield

On Monday, fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front executed a Sunni fighter from the Jaysh al-Islam faction in Ghota Sharqia, a Damascus suburb, and then ripped out his bleeding heart.

A member of al-Qaida's Nusra Front sits in a tank decorated with the Nusra flag near al-Zahra village, north of Aleppo (photo credit: REUTERS)
A member of al-Qaida's Nusra Front sits in a tank decorated with the Nusra flag near al-Zahra village, north of Aleppo
(photo credit: REUTERS)
While the bloodshed in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo is inflicting dozens of victims every day, the fierce fighting between the different rebel factions seems to be reaching a new level of atrocities.
On Monday, fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front executed a Sunni fighter from the Jaysh al-Islam faction in Ghota Sharqia, a Damascus suburb, and then ripped out his bleeding heart from his dead body.
Fighters from Jaysh al-Fusfat, a coalition of rebel forces headed by the Nusra Front, captured Mohammad Amer Hawa, shot him in his head and in his neck, cut out his stomach and then ripped out his heart.
Hawa's execution aroused furor on Syrian social media networks, where a growing number of jihadists lashed out at Nusra Front, claiming that the al-Qaida-linked organization is not different from ISIS and the Iranian militias, who cruelly kill Sunni Muslims.
The rebels that spoke out against Nusra Front emphasized that the fighter who was ruthlessly slaughtered by the group was a devout Muslim who adhered to the religious duties and was not an apostate who should be killed.
This atrocious incident is but another part of the ongoing bloody fighting between the Nusra Front and Jaish al-Islam over control in the strategic region of Ghota Sharqia.