Last week, a number of shocking, graphic videos were posted on YouTube by members of the Free Syrian Army.

In the first set of clips, a number of middle-aged men, many of them bloodied and stripped to their underwear, look terrified as they are told to state their names to the cameraman.

Heavily armed guards are evident in the room.

The focus shifts to a paunchy, grey-haired man clad only in black jockey shorts who is bleeding profusely from a head wound. The YouTube post identifies this to be “Ali Zain a Abdeen Barre, Aleppo Shabiha chief crime boss from the powerful Barre family.”

The city of Aleppo has been the scene of intense fighting these past few weeks between Syrian rebel forces and the government troops and Shabiha (ghost) militia still loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

The crime for which Ali Barre and his followers were alleged to have committed was the killing of 15 “freedom fighters” prior to their own surrender.

The second set of YouTube clips posted just hours later show Ali Barre and four other tribal leaders being hauled down a staircase by an angry armed mob chanting, “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great).

Forced into seated positions on the ground against a wall, the five captives are then shot at point-blank range by numerous automatic weapons.

The crowd continues shouting “Allahu Akbar” but due to the ricochets and splattering body parts, they move back from the pile of bodies.

The astonishing claim made by the Free Syrian Army supporter who uploaded the video was that these images needed to be made public to demonstrate to the world the “violent brutality of the Assad regime.”

Somewhere in that twisted logic we are supposed to better understand what an evil tyrant President Assad must be by watching a group of frightened middle-aged Assad supporters stripped to their skivvies, shot repeatedly at point-blank range until they are a bloodied, lifeless mound.

What I gather from watching this horrific spectacle is that the Free Syrian Army, pro-democracy freedom fighting rebels who are supported by Canada and the international community, are equally capable of committing torture and murder — and then openly boasting about it.

While I admit that I have no knowledge of the crimes Ali Barre and his followers may have perpetuated, I do know that such rough justice violates the Geneva Convention and all rules of law.

In a civil society, even psychopathic murderers such as Clifford Olsen and Karla Homolka are not beaten to death in the street by the police who apprehend them.

Early in the18-month-old Syrian uprising, Canada made it clear that we support the ouster of Assad. And Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has been at his bellicose best leading the international charge to implement sanctions against Syria and bellowing “Assad must go” at every possible opportunity.

With Syria’s long-standing paranoia of Western media, there has been very little independently verified news reports emerging from the conflict zone.

For instance, on May 25, 2012, there was a massacre in the contested town of Houla where some 100 civilians, many women and children had been killed.

The Syrian rebels claimed Assad had massacred his own people while Assad’s spokesman claimed it was the dastardly work of the rebels.

Four days later, Baird took the exceptional step of expelling the Syrian diplomats based in Ottawa as a direct response to the Houla massacre.

On May 29, Baird proclaimed: “Canada and our own partners are speaking loudly with one voice in saying these Syrian representatives are not welcome in our countries while their masters in Damascus continued to perpetuate their heinous and murderous acts.”

Unfortunately for Baird and company, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung threw a big fly in that ointment with Rainer Hermann’s June 7 report.

After a thorough investigation, Hermann concluded the Houla massacre was in fact perpetuated by the rebel factions and specifically targeted the al-Sayyid family, 49 of whom were killed in the attack.

Given that we are actually providing logistic support to the rebels, we should have some clout with their leadership. One would expect Baird to be equally bellicose in denouncing these “heinous and murderous acts.”

But so far, not a peep.