New UN rights chief: Syria, Iraq is first priority

The world's No. 1 human rights priority should be bringing an urgent end to the gruesome conflicts in Iraq and Syria, the new head of the UN's human rights office said Monday. Zeid Raad al-Hussein, in his first speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva after taking up his four-year post on Sept. 1, described Syria as a bloodbath. He said the Islamic State group formed from the civil war's chaos was an unprecedented force of violence against ethnic and religious groups that would be a sham if it were to establish a true state. ‘They reveal only what a Takfiri state would look like, should this movement actually try to govern in the future,’ Zeid said, referring to an ideology that shuns anyone who doesn't adhere to a stringent interpretation of Islam. ‘It would be a harsh, mean-spirited, house of blood, where no shade would be offered, nor shelter given, to any non-Takfiri in their midst,’ according to AP.