Army defector’s photos encourage greater US role in Syria
"Caesar" tells Congress 150,000 prisoners face awful fate in Assad’s jails.
A Syrian army defector’s photos of emaciated and brutalized corpses drew bipartisan calls for greater US involvement during a House hearing on Thursday.
The anonymous military photographer known as “Caesar” appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee cloaked in a blue hoodie alongside several advocates of greater US involvement in Syria's 3-year-old civil war. He told lawmakers that 150,000 people remain in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s prisons and urged the Obama administration and Congress to do all they can to end the slaughter in Syria.
“Pure and simple, these photos cry out for justice,” said Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif. Photos of the dead were placed around the room and played on the committee’s TV screens.
Ranking member Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who introduced legislation to arm vetted Syrian rebels more than a year ago, denounced “war crimes, plain and simple.”
