DAMASCUS - Syrian troops with tanks and helicopters slaughtered 220 people in a central village, Opposition and rights activists said on Friday, prompting calls for urgent UN intervention.
Reports of the massacre came after UN Security Council ambassadors held their first talks on rival Russian and Western draft resolutions on Syria, with Moscow spurning calls for sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government troops had on Thursday massacred more than 150 people in Treimsa village, while a rebel leader put the toll at more than 200. If confirmed, the killing at Treimsa in the central province of Hama would rival the massacre at Houla on May 25, when a pro-Assad militia and government forces were accused of killing at least 108 people.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the bodies of 30 villagers had been identified after the sustained attack, which brought Thursday's total death toll across Syria to well over 200.The Syrian National Council, the main opposition alliance, urged the Security Council to pass a binding resolution against Assad's regime.
"To stop this bloody madness which threatens the entity of Syria, as well as peace and the security in the region and in the world, requires an urgent and sharp resolution of the Security Council under Chapter VII (of the UN Charter) which protects the Syrian people," it said.
Chapter VII allows for punitive measures against regimes considered a threat to the peace, including economic sanctions and military intervention. Syria meanwhile accused the media and "terrorists" of staging the massacre in a bid to trigger UN-backed intervention.
Russia on Friday condemned the latest reported massacre in Syria as a "bloody atrocity" which it blamed on forces that want to foment inter-ethnic conflict and civil war. The Russian foreign ministry said it believed between 50 and 100 people were killed Thursday in the central village of Treimsa in an attack the rebels and the government of President Bashar al-Assad have both blamed on each other. "We resolutely condemn this bloody atrocity," the foreign ministry said in a statement. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, in a message on Twitter, said the incident "dramatically illustrate(s) the need for binding (Security Council) measures on Syria." EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday denounced the massacre in a Syrian village as "an atrocity" and "a blatant violation" of a plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. "I am deeply shocked by reports of the ruthless killing of at least 200 men, women and children" in the village of Treimsa in the Hama region, she said in a statement.
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council on Friday that the Syrian government had "flouted" UN resolutions with the latest mass killings in the country. UN leader Ban Ki-moon also told the council that the killings in the village of Treimsa were an "outrageous escalation" of the conflict.
"The use of artillery, tanks and helicopters, which has been confirmed by UNSMIS, is a violation of the Syrian government's obligations and commitment to cease the use of heavy weapons in population centers," Annan said in a letter to the 15-nation council obtained by AFP.
The United States expressed dismay Friday at "nightmarish" reports of a new massacre in Syria, saying the incident shows the importance of a strong response from the United Nations.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest later said that the incident "certainly does build strong international support" to ramp up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He was speaking to reporters on Air Force One, en route to a campaign stop in Virginia.