Peace talks aimed at ending the nearly 3-year old Syrian Civil War are to begin in Montreux on Switzerland’s Lake Geneva later today.  But the new revelations of industrial scale killing by the Syrian regime are throwing the talks for a loop.

“We will not accept less than the removal of the criminal Bashar al-Assad and changing the regime and holding the murderers accountable,” said Syrian National Coalition Secretary General Badr Jamous said before the conference. 

The coalition’s main backers, The US and UK, each expressed shock and disgust over the enormous cache of photographs documenting how the Syrian regime has allegedly killed an estimated 11,000 detainees with ruthless, industrial efficiency.  A former military police officer defected to the opposition, and provided the documentation and photographs of the dead.  Three former war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts examined the trove and isolated 11,000 individual victims of torture and murder.

“The bodies showed signs of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation and other forms of torture and killing,” they wrote.  “In some cases the bodies had no eyes.”

The revelations could add urgency to the opposition’s insistence that Assad must step down so that a transitional government can take over.

The conference will begin in Montreux on Wednesday, and continue in Geneva two days later.  It’s the first time the Syrian government and the opposition have met face-to-face since the start of the conflict.