GENEVA: Syrian government forces and allied Shabbiha militia have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, United Nations human rights investigators said on Wednesday.

Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad have also committed war crimes, but the violations "did not reach the gravity, frequency and scale" of those carried out by the army and security forces, they said.

"The commission found reasonable grounds to believe that government forces and the Shabbiha had committed the crimes against humanity of murder and of torture, war crimes and gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including unlawful killing, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual violence, indiscriminate attack, pillaging and destruction of property," said the 102-page report by the independent investigators led by Paulo Pinheiro. AGENCES