Exclusive: Syria opposition leader posts fake photo

Leader of the foreign-backed Syrian opposition Ahmed Jarba has posted a fake photo on the Internet that depicts an orphaned Syrian boy sleeping between the graves of his parents.

Jarba claimed in his Twitter post that “children of Syria are orphaned by (Syrian President Bashar) Assad.”

The disturbing photo has been also making the rounds on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Foreign Policy magazine said in a report that the photo was “totally fake.”

“Far from being a chronicle of war, the photo was actually part of an art project by Saudi Arabian photographer, Abdul Aziz al-Otaibi,” the magazine said.

Foreign Policy quoted Otaibi as saying that it is “not true at all that my picture has anything to do with Syria… I am really shocked how people have twisted my picture.”

Otaibi added that the boy in the photo is his nephew.

Jarba deleted the photo from Twitter about 30 minutes after publishing it.

The report comes as leaders of the foreign-backed Syrian opposition coalition are in Istanbul to decide on whether to attend next week’s Geneva II conference on the crisis in Syria.

Many members of the so-called Syrian National Coalition say the conference has little chance of success.

The Geneva II conference will open in the Swiss city of Montreux on January 22. The conference is seen as a chance to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

Nearly three years of crisis in Syria has taken its toll on the lives of over one hundred thousand people, according to the United Nations.