The Red Cross now views fighting in Syria as an internal armed conflict - a civil war in layman’s terms - crossing a threshold experts say can help lay the ground for future prosecutions for war crimes.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions setting down the rules of war, and as such is considered a reference in qualifying when violence has evolved into an armed conflict.
The independent humanitarian agency had previously classed the violence in Syria as localized civil wars between government forces and armed opposition groups in three flashpoints - Homs, Hama and Idlib.
But hostilities have spread to other areas, leading the Swiss-based agency to conclude the fighting meets its threshold for an internal armed conflict and to inform the warring parties of its analysis and their obligations under law.
EXCLUSIVE: Red Cross ruling raises questions of war crimes in Syria
