With the international community expressing outrage over the massacre of at least 108 civilians in the village of Houla, fresh outbreaks of fighting were being reported in other conflict hotspots.
On Monday, activists in the opposition stronghold of Hama reported an intensified government bombardment of the city, saying that at least 41 people had been killed by fire from tanks and military vehicles in the past 24 hours.
The dead included five women and eight children, the Hama Revolution Leadership Council said in a statement.
“Tank shelling brought down several buildings. Their inhabitants were pulled out from the rubble and many are in a critical condition,” the statement said. The report could not be independently verified.
On Sunday the UN Security Council unanimously condemned Friday’s massacre in Houla near the city of Homs, which left at least 108 people dead, including 49 children and 34 women. The council said civilians had been shot “at close range” and suffered “severe physical abuse”.
It is one of the worst atrocities in the regime’s campaign to crush a 14-month revolt against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Reuters on Sunday night cited opposition activists saying at least 30 more people had been killed on Sunday in a separate attack by Syrian army tanks in Hama. The reports could not be independently verified.
Several Free Syrian Army brigades – army defectors and armed civilian groups – said it was “no longer possible to abide by the peace plan brokered by Kofi Annan”, insisting that the regime had taken advantage of a supposed ceasefire to step up its killings in a conflict that has so far cost more than 10,000 lives.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission, which groups local networks of protesters, said the UN observers, whose numbers were expected to increase to 300 by the end of the month, should leave Syria, and asked the revolutionaries not to cooperate with the Annan mission.
Syria’s uprising began peacefully but has become increasingly militarized as low-ranking defections from the army multiplied and civilians took up arms to defend their villages and towns. The opposition, however, remains poorly armed.
The brutal response by the regime of Bashar al-Assad to the popular revolt is exposing failures in international policy and the wishful thinking of policy makers who believed the president was a reformer.
Tensions have been growing between western powers and Russia over the end-game of the Annan plan, with Moscow insisting that Assad should remain in place and the US and European powers looking for a political transition that includes his departure.
“We are horrified by credible reports of targeted killing, including stabbing and axe attacks on women and children in Houla,” the White House said. “These acts serve as a vile testament to an illegitimate regime that responds to peaceful political protest with unspeakable and inhuman brutality.”
William Hague, UK foreign secretary, said on Sunday that the international community was “sickened” by the Houla killings, adding that the death toll in Syria could now have reached 15,000. He called for an increase in the size of the UN observer mission.
Syrian opposition calls for western military action similar to the intervention in Libya last year have been rebuffed, amid fears that intervention would widen the conflict in a strategic country where the regime is allied to Iran.
PHOTO CAPTION
This citizen journalism image provided by Shaam News Network taken Saturday, May 26, 2012, purports to show shrouded dead bodies following a Syrian government assault on Houla, Syria.
Source: Agencies