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A video which appears to show a Syrian rebel taking a bite from the heart of a dead soldier has brought strong condemnation.

US-based Human Rights Watch identified the rebel as Abu Sakkar, a well-known insurgent from the city of Homs, and said his actions were a war crime.

The main Syrian opposition coalition said he would be put on trial.

The video, which cannot be independently authenticated, seems to show him cutting out the heart.

"I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog," the man says referring to President Bashar al-Assad as he stands over the soldier's corpse.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Abu Sakkar is the leader of a group called the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade.

"The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence," HRW's Peter Bouckaert told Reuters news agency.

HRW said those committing war crimes on either side had to know that there was no impunity and that they would be brought to account.

The human rights group said Abu Sakkar had been filmed before, firing rockets into Shia areas of Lebanon and posing with the bodies of guerrillas from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement killed fighting alongside Syrian government forces.

The video, posted on Sunday, is one of the most gruesome to emerge among the many thrown up by more than two years of carnage in Syria, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut.

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Stuart Hazell has been jailed for a minimum 38 years for killing his partner's granddaughter, Tia Sharp.

The 37-year-old had denied murder, however on the fifth day of his trial at the Old Bailey he changed his plea.

The court heard Hazell sexually assaulted and murdered Tia, 12, at her grandmother's house in south London.

Judge Justice Nicol said he could not impose a whole life tariff as he was not sure Hazell's motivation was sexual or that it was pre-meditated.

He said: "Tia's mother trusted you to look after Tia. You have breached that trust in the most grievous way possible.

"Your guilty plea came on day five. You said you wished to avoid causing further stress to Tia's family. That is commendable, but they have had to endure four days of a very public trial."

Hazell hid her body in her grandmother's loft in New Addington last August.

Despite four searches of the house, her body was not found until a week after she had been reported missing.

Hazell had claimed Tia died after falling down the stairs and breaking her neck, and he hid her body because he panicked.

The prosecution claimed he had a sexual attraction to the schoolgirl.

Jurors were shown an explicit image of a child, alleged to be Tia, which was said to have been taken in the early hours of 3 August 2012 when prosecutors say she died.

The court heard Hazell had previous convictions stretching back 22 years for offences including drug dealing, racially aggravated common assault, burglary and causing grievous bodily harm.

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