Dozens killed in another Syrian massacre

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

Some of those killed in the village of Mazraat al-Qabeer were stabbed to death, the activists said, and at least 12 bodies had been burned.

A spokesman for the Syrian National Council, the main opposition coalition, said there had been a “massacre” in the villages of Qubair and Maarzaf.

More than 20 children and 20 women were reportedly among the dead.

The killings came less than two weeks after a massacre in the Syrian town of Houla, in which some 108 people were killed, nearly half of them children.

Meanwhile, China and Russia declared they were “decisively against” intervention or regime change in Syria, as Arab and Western calls mounted for tougher international action in the 15-month conflict.

As rebel fighters stepped up their attacks in and around Damascus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that regime change in Syria would lead the Middle East to “catastrophe”.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has voiced mounting frustration with the Chinese and Russian position, was to discuss the situation with allies in Istanbul later last night.

In a joint statement issued after two days of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leaders, Beijing and Moscow said they strongly opposed intervention and regime change in Syria.

“Russia and China are decisively against attempts to regulate the Syrian crisis with outside military intervention, as well as imposing . . . a policy of regime change,” the statement said.

Speaking in the Chinese capital, the Russian foreign minister urged the international community to resist calls from the exiled opposition to help oust President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“(Opposition groups) outside Syria appeal to the world community more and more to bomb the Assad regime, to change this regime,” Lavrov told reporters in the Chinese capital. “This is very risky, I would even say it is a way that will bring the region to catastrophe.”

Lavrov hit out at the rebel Free Syrian Army’s announcement last Friday that it was no longer bound by a six-point peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan and endorsed by the UN Security Council in a resolution backed by both Beijing and Moscow.

Lavrov said it was important for all states that have sway over Syria’s opposition groups to convince them to stop escalating the situation, adding that Beijing and Moscow would continue in lockstep over Syria, opposing foreign intervention and forced regime change.

The two nations have vetoed two Security Council resolutions criticising Assad’s regime, but they voted in support of Annan’s blueprint to end the conflict, in which more than 13,500 people have died since March last year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The plan was supposed to begin with a ceasefire from April 12 but, as violence has raged on daily despite the deployment of nearly 300 UN observers, doubts have emerged about its effectiveness.

Armed rebels went on the offensive in and around Damascus during the night, while 18 people were killed in shelling, blasts and clashes across Syria yesterday, the Observatory said.

According to the Britain-based watchdog’s figures, at least 168 soldiers have been killed in the past week, including 76 at the weekend.

Rebel fighters clashed with regime troops in Harasta and at checkpoints near Douma, Irbin amd Zamalka, all in the Damascus region, among several other neighbourhoods of the capital, the Observatory said.

Clinton was to meet her British, French, Turkish and some Arab counterparts in Istanbul later ahead of a briefing by Annan of the UN Security Council today.

Clinton said she would reserve judgment on a Russian proposal for a global conference on Syria that would include Iran together with other powers.

“It’s hard to imagine inviting a country (Iran) that is stage-managing the Assad regime’s assault on its people,” she said.

Washington backed an Arab League proposal to invoke UN Chapter Seven sanctions against Damascus, without mentioning military intervention.

Britain’s foreign minister, William Hague, France’s Laurent Fabius, Turkey’s Ahmet Davutoglu and several Arab ministers were to attend the Istanbul meeting.

Reuters