Mohammed Katta's mother witnessed the execution of her son in three stages.

Muhammad Sanctions This Evil

She was upstairs at home when she first heard the shouting. The people of the neighbourhood were yelling that "they have brought back the kid", so she rushed out of her apartment.

"I went out on my balcony," Nadia Umm Fuad said. "I said to his father, they are going to shoot your son! Come! Come! Come! I was on the stairs when I heard the first shot. I was at the door when I heard the second shot.

"I saw the third shot. I was shouting, 'That's haram, forbidden! Stop! Stop! You are killing a child.' But they just gave me a dirty look and got into their car. As they went, they drove over my son's arm, as he lay there dying."



Mohammed was 14 when he was killed, earlier this month, prompting international condemnation. He has become a symbol of the fears many Syrians have for the future of a country where jihadists are vying with the regime for control.

He is a counterweight – the comparison was Nadia Umm Fuad's – to Hamza al-Khatib, the 13-year-old from Deraa in southern Syria returned by regime troops to his parents battered, genitals removed, kneecaps smashed, burned and with three gunshot wounds, early in the uprising.

Mohammed was working at the family's coffee stall in the Shaar district of Aleppo when he made a fatal mistake. Pressured by a customer to hand over a coffee on promise of payment, he shouted good-humouredly: "I wouldn't give the Prophet Mohammed credit if he came here today." He was overheard by two men on the opposite corner. Marching over, they whisked him away in a car, ignoring his protestations of his love for the Prophet and the objections of a militiaman from the Free Syrian Army nearby. Half an hour later, they returned. According to Mohammed's younger brother and the neighbours, he was staggering and fell to his knees, and had clearly been beaten. A bag had been placed over his head.

"I heard them say, 'People of Aleppo and people of Shaar! Anyone who curses God is given three days to repent. Anyone who curses the Prophet is killed immediately'," Nadia Umm Fuad said....