[euyyn]

> Why would the Syrian government torture and mutilate a 13-year-old boy and then return the body/proof to the parents?

The obvious possible motive is to send a signal that that's what happens if you oppose the regime. Your kid disappearing isn't as strong a message as receiving his corpse in pieces.

> There was no strategical need for dropping gas but still, he apparently did... why would he?

There was strategical need to drop bombs, even Assad and Putin acknowledged that. Why not gas? The lesson from the previous gas attack a few years ago, whether or not he did it, was that he could get away with it.

And there's been ethnical cleansing going on on both sides in that region. So it isn't the most surprising thing either.