Syria observers under fire

Enlarge Image

The Associated Press Free Syrian Army members train with their weapons on the outskirts of Idlib, Syria, Thursday. (CP)

Enlarge Image

The Associated Press A Free Syrian Army officer chants slogans during a training session near Idlib, Syria. Mass killings could become �part of everyday reality,� the UN warned Thursday. (CP)

BEIRUT -- UN observers came under fire Thursday as they tried to reach the site of the latest reported mass killing in Syria -- about 80 people, including women and children who were shot or stabbed. The deaths added urgency to diplomatic efforts to end the escalating bloodshed.

As reports emerged of what would be the fourth such mass slaying of civilians in Syria in the last two weeks, the United States condemned President Bashar Assad, saying he has "doubled down on his brutality and duplicity."

International envoy Kofi Annan, whose peace plan brokered in April has not been implemented, warned against allowing "mass killings to become part of everyday reality in Syria."

"If things do not change, the future is likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence, and even all-out civil war," Annan told the UN General Assembly in New York. "All Syrians will lose."

UN diplomats said Annan is expected to propose world powers and key regional players, including Iran, come up with a new strategy to end the 15-month conflict at a closed meeting of the Security Council later Thursday.

Annan will present a plan for creating a "contact group" whose final proposal must be acceptable to Russia and China, which have protected their ally from past UN sanctions, as well as the U.S. and its European allies, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations have been private.

The latest violence centred on Mazraat al-Qubair, a small farming community of 160 people, mostly Bedouins, in central Hama province. Activists said the Sunni village is surrounded by Alawite villages. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and Assad is a member of the sect, while the opposition is dominated by Sunnis.

A resident said troops shelled the area for five hours Wednesday before government-aligned militiamen known as "shabiha" entered the area that is known to shelter army defectors, "killing and hacking everyone they could find."

Leith Al-Hamwy told The Associated Press by telephone he survived by hiding in an olive grove about 800 metres from the farms as the killings took place. But he said his mother and six siblings, the youngest 10-year-old twins, did not. "When I came out of hiding and went inside the houses, I saw bodies everywhere. Entire families either shot or killed with sharp sticks and knives," he said.

Al-Hamwy would not give his exact location or real name, fearing for his safety, but said he was waiting for UN observers to come to the farm. Al-Hamwy's account could not be independently confirmed or corroborated by other eyewitnesses.

He said the gunmen set his family home on fire and his family burned to death, huddled in a concrete attic above their bathroom, where they stored food provisions. Around 80 people in total died, he said, many of them children, and that most of the village's 20 homes were either destroyed by the shelling or burned down.

"There's flesh of animals and humans scattered, the smell of smoke from burning houses and bodies," al-Hamwy said.

Syria's main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, also said 78 people were killed in Mazraat al-Qubair when government-aligned militiamen converged on the village from neighbouring pro-regime villages. Some of the dead were shot in the head, others were slain with knives, the SNC said. It said 35 of the dead were from the same family and more than half of them were women and children.

"Women and children were burned inside their homes in al-Qubair," said Mousab Alhamadee, an activist based in Hama.

Syria denied the opposition claims as "absolutely baseless." The exact death toll and circumstances of the killings reported overnight in Mazraat al-Qubair were impossible to confirm.

One YouTube video purported to show the bodies of babies, children and two women wrapped in blankets and lined with frozen bottles of water to slow decomposition.

Another row of bodies lay elsewhere: a grandmother, a mother, and five siblings and two cousins, according to the video narrator. All the corpses were neatly wrapped in white sheets, more frozen water bottles tucked among them. One toddler's arm covered her face. Their names were scrawled on pieces of paper and tucked into their shrouds.

In another video were four blackened objects that the narrator said were the remains of a mother and two children who were shelled in their home.

The authenticity of the videos could not be independently verified. Attempts to reach more witnesses and residents of the area were difficult, as the Syrian government keeps tight restrictions on journalists.

A government statement published on the state-run news agency SANA said "an armed terrorist group committed an appalling crime" in Mazraat al-Qubair, killing nine women and children. It said residents appealed for protection from Hama authorities, who went to the farm and stormed a hideout of the group and clashed with them.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 8, 2012 A21