The 16-month-long bloodbath in Syria has been officially termed a civil war by the Red Cross. While this declaration is symbolic, in terms of forcing a shake-up in the way the international community is treating the whole issue, it also carries with it implications for potential war crimes prosecutions.

The Red Cross statement came as United Nations observers gathered new details on what happened in a village where dozens were reported killed in a regime assault. So far, the UN has established that Syrian troops went door-to-door in the small farming community, checking residents’ IDs and then killing some and taking others away.

According to the UN, the attacks seemed to systematically target army defectors and activists. This is not fiction. The Syria conflict is unlike the one in Libya where foreign journalists entered the country and citizens used social media to spread video and news. Syria is a closed box – those journalists who did try to enter ended up dead and wounded; none returned. But the UN team had this to say: “Pools of blood and brain matter were observed in a number of homes.”

In the meantime, the Bashar Assad regime denies that its troops had used heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery and helicopters during attacks. This is hard to believe, when it is abundantly clear that Russia continues to try and supply the regime with weapons and services its heavy weapons – a case in point was the attempted delivery of refurbished attack helicopters some weeks ago. They were only discovered when a ship was inspected.

The Assad regime maintains that the acts of violence were not massacres, but military operations targeted at “terrorists”. In fact, the military said that in the last round of killings, some 37 gunmen were killed with two civilians killed in collateral damage. Activists, however, put the number of estimated dead at more than 100, and many of them were civilians or unarmed deserters.

The UN said that its observers have seen heavy weapons and attack helicopters used in operations against civilians. So far, some 17,000 have been killed. This is still a far cry from the tens of thousands (some believe over 100,000) who were killed when there was an uprising against Bashar Assad’s father – Hafez. He ordered the carpet bombing of Hama in 1982.

And now the fighting is escalating. There has been heavy fighting for two days running in Damascus. But since the Red Cross said it now considers the Syrian conflict a civil war, international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.

Also known as the rules of war, humanitarian law grants all parties in a conflict the right to use appropriate force to achieve their aims. The Geneva-based group’s assessment is an important reference for determining how much and what type of force can be used, and it can form the basis for war crimes prosecutions, especially if civilians are attacked or detained enemies are abused or killed.

Previously, the Red Cross committee had restricted its assessment of the scope of the conflict to the hotspots of Idlib, Homs and Hama. But the organisation concluded that the violence was widening.

“Hostilities have spread to other areas of the country,” Hassan said. “International humanitarian law applies to all areas where hostilities are taking place,“ a spokesman said.

Although much of the international community has turned on Assad, Damascus still has some key allies – including Russia and Iran.