Government forces and the militias operating alongside them summarily executed captured opposition fighters and civilians, sometimes in large numbers, during military incursions into areas perceived to be supportive of the opposition. Often the dead were found with their hands tied behind their backs, with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body. Some were burned.

Government soldiers took three brothers – Yousef, Bilal and Talal Haj Hussein, all construction workers in their twenties – from their home in Sarmin, a suburb of Idlib, on 23 March. They summarily executed them in front of their mother and sisters, before setting their bodies on fire.
Scores of people, including many civilians not involved in fighting, were summarily executed during a military incursion into Houla village, near Homs, on 25 May. Despite government denials, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that “over 100 civilians, nearly half of whom were children” were killed there by government soldiers and associated militias.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/syria/report-2013#section-142-6

I went to AFP website to link here, it appears the claim comes from the SYrian Observatory on Human Rights

- Children run -

In the province of Aleppo, where an offensive by the army and its auxiliaries against the rebels failed this week, "48 Syrians, including 13 rebels, with their family members were executed by gunfire Tuesday in the town of Rityane "according to the OSDH.

Civilians were ten children and five women, according to the OSDH, adding that the victims belonged to six families.

Most were executed in their homes. "The soldiers and pro-regime militiamen knew exactly where they lived with informants who accompanied them," according to Abdel Rahman, which is based on population testimonies income Rityane after the withdrawal of the military.

Reached by internet, an anti-regime activist in the province, Mamoun Abu Omar, said that some "were killed with knives, others were defaced."

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2015/02/21/syrie-les-rebelles-frappent-le-fief-d-assad-une-ong-denonce-un-massacre-a-alepo_1207318 (Google Translated the above)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Observatory_for_Human_Rights

It may not be true given that Syria is the most dangerous place for journalists -- however, here is more on the man

A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War’s Casualty Count

COVENTRY, England — Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.

Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city.

Using the simplest, cheapest Internet technology available, Mr. Abdul Rahman spends virtually every waking minute tracking the war in Syria, disseminating bursts of information about the fighting and the death toll. What began as sporadic, rudimentary e-mails about protests early in the uprising has swelled into a torrent of statistics and details.

All sides in the conflict accuse him of bias, and even he acknowledges that the truth can be elusive on Syria’s tangled and bitter battlefields. That, he says, is what prompts him to keep a tight leash on his operation.

“I need to control everything myself,” said Mr. Abdul Rahman, a bald, bearish, affable man. “I am a simple citizen from a simple family who has managed to accomplish something huge using simple means — all because I really believe in what I am doing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/world/middleeast/the-man-behind-the-casualty-figures-in-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

The same one that accused black Libyans of being mercenaries. Ofc that lie was used to invade Libya and the Libyan blacks were chased out of the country or lynched. The have as much credibility in my book as the Syrian observatory for human rights.

There are leaked videos of inmates being tortured in Assad's prisons.

This is from the UN

Armed opposition forces, including a growing number of pro-opposition foreign fighters, have also carried out serious abuses including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, executions, kidnapping, and torture. According to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as of July 2013 more than 100,000 people had been killed in the conflict. The spread and intensification of fighting have led to a dire humanitarian crisis with millions internally displaced or seeking refuge in neighboring countries.
Attacks on Civilians, Unlawful Use of Weapons

On August 21, hundreds of civilians, including many children, were killed in a chemical weapons attack on areas near Damascus. A UN investigation determined that the nerve agent sarin was used. While the Syrian government denies responsibility, available evidence strongly suggests that government forces were responsible for the attack. In response to US and French threats of strikes in response to the attack, Syria acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to eliminate its chemical weapons in the first half of 2014.

Syrian armed forces have also continued to use cluster bombs—weapons banned by the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which Syria has not signed. Human Rights Watch has identified 152 locations where government forces used at least 204 cluster munitions, in 9 of the country’s 14 governorates. The actual number of cluster munitions used by Syrian government forces is probably higher.

The Syrian air force has dropped incendiary weapons in populated areas in dozens of instances, including on a school playground in al-Qusayr in December 2012.Incendiary weapons contain flammable substances designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injuries and death.

Syria’s air force also repeatedly carried out indiscriminate, and in some cases deliberate, strikes against civilians, and its army has also struck populated areas with ballistic missiles. Human Rights Watch investigated nine apparent ballistic missile attacks in 2013 that killed at least 215 people, including 100 children. No military targets were struck in the attacks and in seven of nine cases investigated Human Rights Watch found no signs of any apparent military targets in the vicinity.

http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/syria

Here is what Reporters without Borders claims when it comes to Assad

When you took over as president on 10 July 2000, after 30 years of a ruthless dictatorship led by your father, Hafez Al-Assad, both the Syrian people and the international community thought you would be a reformer, that you would bring democracy to your country. Thirteen years later, you are seen in a very different light. Ever since the Syrian uprising began in the spring of 2011, you have obstinately rejected any possibility of reform and have not hesitated to use imprisonment, torture and summary execution to silence opposition voices. In your determination to hold on to power, you have been responsible for an unprecedented bloodbath.

Bashar Al-Assad, Reporters Without Borders accuses you of the following crimes since you became president:

Controlling the news put out by the government and pro-government media.

Routinely denying entry to most of the foreign journalists who want to visit Syria.

Trying to deter journalists from entering without a permit by using your information minister to threaten them with arrest on a charge of cooperating with Al-Qaida.

Ordering the cyber-police to track down everyone whose online activities pose a threat to the regime’s interests.

Arbitrarily detaining many Syrian and foreign news providers since the start of the uprising in March 2011.

Ordering and organizing the systematic use of torture on detained news providers.

Deliberately attacking Syrian and foreign news providers who cover the government’s brutal crackdown.

http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/syria

The story, the source comes from the person who runs Syrian Human Rights watch. RT appears to be his strongest critic. Russia allies with Assad, Iran, & maybe others.

Syrian regime document trove shows evidence of 'industrial scale' killing of detainees

Read the report in full: http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/jan/20/torture-of-persons-under-current-syrian-regime-report

Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the "systematic killing" of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers.

The three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files recording deaths in the custody of regime security forces from March 2011 to last August.

Most of the victims were young men and many corpses were emaciated, bloodstained and bore signs of torture. Some had no eyes; others showed signs of strangulation or electrocution.

The UN and independent human rights groups have documented abuses by both Bashar al-Assad's government and rebels, but experts say this evidence is more detailed and on a far larger scale than anything else that has yet emerged from the 34-month crisis.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/20/evidence-industrial-scale-killing-syria-war-crimes?view=desktop

Human Rights Watch (UN)

Rights Group Says Syrian Security Forces Detained, Tortured Children

Human Rights Watch has a harrowing report out today about what it says is the targeting of children by Syria's government forces.

"Children have not been spared the horror of Syria's crackdown," Lois Whitman, children's rights director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Syrian security forces have killed, arrested and tortured children in their homes, their schools or on the streets. In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults."

The rights organization said it had documented at least 12 cases of children being detained, tortured and shot while on the streets or at home. Human Rights Watch also says that government forces are using schools as "detention centers, military bases or barracks, and sniper posts."

Its report is based on interviews with children and their parents. The group says is corroborated the stories with defecting army officers who said they were ordered to round up any male older than 14 or 15.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/03/146346490/rights-group-says-syrian-security-forces-detained-tortured-children

Assad indiscriminantly shells one side of Aleppo, the Jihadist rebels indiscriminately shell the other side but both side sides are blocked from the other
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/syria-aleppo-regime-division-couples-love.html

On 9 March 2012, during the 2012 Homs offensive, 30 tanks of the Syrian Army entered the quarter of Karm al-Zeitoun.[5] After this, it was reported that the Syrian Army had massacred 47 women and children in the district (26 children and 21 women), some of whom had their throats slit, according to activists. The opposition claimed that the main perpetrators behind the killings were the government paramilitary force the Shabiha.[6]
On 5 April, the military captured Taftanaz's city center after a two-hour battle, following which the army reportedly carried out a massacre by rounding up and executing people. At least 62 people were killed. It was unknown how many were opposition fighters and how many were civilians.[7][8][9]
On 25 May 2012, the Houla massacre occurred in two opposition-controlled villages in the Houla region of Syria, a cluster of villages north of Homs. According to the United Nations, 108 people were killed, including 34 women and 49 children. UN investigators have reported that witnesses and survivors stated that the massacre was committed by pro-government Shabiha.[10] The Syrian government alleged that Al-Qaeda terrorist groups were responsible for the killings, and that Houla residents were warned not to speak publicly by opposition forces.[11][12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War

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The OP comes from the man behind "Syrian Human Rights Watch". Amnesty International was another source verifying much of the same, now I posted many more. Everyone credible when it comes to reporting human rights violations are reporting multiple instances of the this sort of thing taking place. One reason why the Assad regime does this is because human rights groups have reported "moderate rebel forces" have been using child soldiers. IS probably does too but much worse, they target children heavily with their preaching in addition to their fear & intimidation techniques.

but a kneejerk response such as yours isn't much smarter.

I think most people know to evaluate claims like this. AFP is a good news source and this story makes clear where the information comes from.