Nine massacres carried out in Syria

At least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by president Bashar Assad's regime and its supporters and one has been carried out by rebels over the past year and a half, a UN commission has said.

Calling Syria a battlefield where "massacres are perpetrated with impunity", the UN commission investigating human rights abuses in Syria also said it is probing nine more suspected mass killings since March.

Its latest report updates its work from 2011 until mid-July, stopping short of what the United States said was a chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas that killed hundreds of civilians on August 21.

The commission created by the UN's 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva said both sides have committed heinous war crimes during the conflict that has killed over 100,000 people.