Report: Teenage Syrian Girl Decapitated by Assad's Secret Police

The decapitated body of an 18-year-old girl has emerged as new evidence of the depraved Assad regime's brutality despite attempts to black out the media.

A horrified Syrian family discovered the mutilated body of their 18-year-old daughter Zainab al-Hosni on September 13 when they were visiting the morgue to pick up their also murdered son, according to Amnesty International.

Syrian authorities apparently held and tortured the sister in order to force her activist brother Mohammad Deeb al-Hosni to turn himself in.

It is believed the secret police promised to release Zainab if Mohammad, who had been organizing anti-regime protests, gave himself up.  But in the end, it appears both of them were brutally murdered in Syrian custody by the Assad regime's secret police.

When Muhammad and Zainab's mother went to pick up her son's body, she saw cigarette burns and bruises all over him, and bullet holes in his right arm, right leg, and three in his chest. The mother was subsequently forced to sign a document saying her daughter had been kidnapped and killed by an armed gang.

Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said of the terrible discovery that:

“If it is confirmed that Zainab was in custody when she died, this would be one of the most disturbing cases of a death in detention we have seen so far. We have documented other cases of protesters whose bodies were returned to their families in a mutilated state during recent months, but this is particularly shocking.”

Approximately 2,600 Syrians have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising began six months ago.

While the Assad regime  tortures and kills its own people, it controls all domestic media outlets, making it difficult to get information on the security forces brutality.  In addition to the international media ban, pro-regime forces are  waging an internet campaign to discredit and intimidate opponents of Assad abroad by hacking into computer systems.

President Obama has called for Assad to step down and for an end to violence against protestors in Syria.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International's Philip Luther has said "there are no signs of torture and murder abating in Syria."