United Nations observers smelled the stench of burned corpses and saw body parts scattered around a Syrian farming hamlet that was the site of a massacre in which nearly 80 men, women and children were reported to have been killed.

UN monitors entered the Syrian hamlet of Mazraat al-Qubeir yesterday, where opposition activists say at least 78 people were killed, a UN source said.

Explosions echoed over Damascus today as Syrian troops clashed with rebels in some of the heaviest fighting yet in the capital in the 15-month uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Syrian troops have heavily shelled a rebel-held neighbourhood in the flashpoint central city of Homs as the military appeared to be readying to storm the area, activists said.

Syrian troops are shelling the rebel-held neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh in the central city of Homs, according to activists.

The United Nations secretary general has warned that the danger of civil war in Syria is imminent, with “catastrophic” consequences for the region.

United Nations monitors were shot at while trying to get to the scene of the latest Syrian massacre, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said today.

United Nations observers have been blocked by Syrian troops from the site of a new mass killing, the head of the monitoring team said today.

Syrian authorities have today denied the reports of a new massacre as "absolutely baseless".

Syrian activists reported a surge of bloodshed in the central Hama province, with at least 23 people killed - and possibly many more.

Activists said pro-government militia men and security forces killed at least 78 people, including children, in Syria’s central province of Hama yesterday.

Syrian president Bashar Assad has defended his government’s crackdown on opponents, saying a doctor performing emergency surgery does not have blood on his hands if he is trying to save a patient.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad yesterday defended his government’s crackdown on opponents, saying a doctor performing messy emergency surgery does not have blood on his hands if he is trying to save a patient.

Syria’s president has said his country is passing through its most critical stage since the end of colonialism and he blamed “outside forces” for the crisis.

At least seven people were killed and 22 others injured in gun battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in northern Lebanon today, security officials said, as activists reported fresh shelling in a region in central Syria where a massacre last week left more than 100 people dead.

The UN's top human rights official said today that there should be no amnesty for serious crimes committed in Syria, even if the threat of prosecution might motivate members of the regime to cling to power at all costs.

Russia faces mounting pressure to intervene in the spiralling Syria crisis today, as a top British diplomat urged Moscow to "get off the fence" or see a bloody civil war erupt and spread to other nations.

The UN's top human rights body has voted overwhelmingly to condemn Syria over the slaughter of more than 100 civilians last week.

Syria is nearing full-blown sectarian civil war that would be catastrophic for the entire Middle East, Western nations said, urging Russia to end its support for President Bashar al-Assad and put pressure on him to stop the bloodshed.

The UN’s top human rights body has voted to condemn Syria over the killing of more than 100 civilians last week.

The UN’s top human rights body has voted to condemn Syria over the killing of more than 100 civilians last week.

Gunmen have killed 11 workers at a state factory in central Syria, activists say, the second execution-style shooting reported in the country in less than a week.

The US is heaping new pressure on Russia to change course and support international action in Syria, warning that intransigence by Moscow may lead to open civil war that could spill across the Middle East with devastating consequences.

Syrian troops today shelled the central region of Houla where more than 100 people were massacred last week, activists said.

A Syrian honorary consul in the US has resigned in protest after last week's killings in Houla, where more than 100 people were slaughtered in a massacre blamed on pro-government forces.

UN observers have found another 13 bound corpses in eastern Syria, many of them seemingly shot execution- style, said the monitoring mission.

Thirteen bound corpses, many apparently shot execution-style, have been discovered in eastern Syria, days after the massacre of more than 100 people provoked international outrage.

Syrian forces are resuming their attack on the town in which over 100 civilians were killed last weekend.

The UN peacekeeping chief said today there are strong suspicions that pro-regime fighters were responsible for some of the 108 victims of a massacre in Syria, along with heavy weapons illegally fired by government forces.

French President Francois Hollande says Syria’s ambassador is being expelled amid continuing violence by Syrian government forces against civilians and opposition members.

The UN said today that entire families were shot in their homes during a massacre in Syria last week that killed more than 100 people, including children.

Australia has expelled two Syrian diplomats in response to last week’s massacre in Syria in which more than 100 people, mostly women and children, were killed.

International envoy Kofi Annan is meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad to discuss the peace plan meant to end the country’s 15-month-old crisis.

The weekend massacre of more than 100 people became a potential turning point in the Syrian crisis yesterday as even staunch ally Russia took an unusually hard line against President Bashar Assad’s government.

UN peace envoy Kofi Annan condemned the killing of at least 108 people in the Syrian town of Houla as “an appalling crime” and urged president Bashar al-Assad to prove he wants a peaceful resolution to the crisis racking his country.

Special envoy Kofi Annan said he was horrified by a gruesome weekend killings that saw more than 100 Syrian people lose their lives, and called on "every individual with a gun" to lay down arms.

The United Nations Security Council blamed Syrian government forces last night for artillery and tank shelling of residential areas in the town of Houla and strongly condemned the killing of dozens of civilians.

Facing mounting international outrage over the killing of at least 109 people in the restive town of Houla, Syria yesterday accused rebels of carrying out the massacre, in which dozens of children were murdered.

The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting today to discuss the massacre in Syria.

Syria’s foreign ministry has denied government troops were behind an attack on a string of villages that left more than 90 people dead.

Horrified Hillary Clinton said Bashar Assad’s “rule by murder and fear” must end after dozens of children were massacred in one of the Syrian regime’s deadliest attacks in the country’s 14-month-old uprising.

At least 32 children and more than 60 adults were killed in fighting in the centre of Syria yesterday, the head of the UN observer team in the country said tonight.

Activists have raised the number of those reportedly killed by regime forces in a district of central Syria to more than 90.

President Bashar Assad’s forces killed at least 50 civilians, including 13 children, in central Syria, activists said.