It is now estimated that 60,000 people have lost their lives in Syria’s 22-month, three-way proxy war between Bashar al-Assad’s regime, West-backed rebel forces, and Kurdish troops. This figure is the result of a cross-checking of the names of the dead by the United Nations and suggests that previous numbers cited by opposition groups in Syria were actually too conservative. “The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking,” said U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay. “The failure of the international community, in particular the Security Council, to take concrete actions to stop the blood-letting, shames us all, she said. In another worrying development, a senior figure in the Free Syrian Army said the rebels now have everything needed in order to produce their own chemical weapons. “If we ever use them, we will only hit the regime’s bases and centers,” Bassam Al-Dada, the political adviser of the Free Syrian Army, told Turkey’s Anatolia news agency.

[Photo: Guest2625 / WikiCommons]