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Amman/Beirut: About 220 Syrians,
mostly civilians, were killed in a village in the rebellious Hama
region when it was bombarded by helicopter gunships and tanks then
stormed by militiamen who slaughtered some families, opposition
sources said Friday.
UN special envoy Kofi Annan said he was “shocked and appalled” by
news of “intense fighting, significant casualties, and the
confirmed use of heavy weaponry such as artillery, tanks and
helicopters” in the village of Tremseh.
“I condemn these atrocities in the strongest possible terms,”
Annan said in a statement.
There were no independent accounts of the number of dead or how
they were killed. UN monitors in Syria are currently confined to
Damascus because of mounting violence.
An activist video — the only film record to appear so far — showed
the bloodied corpses of 15 young men with faces or shirts drenched
in blood. Most wore T-shirts and jeans.
Syrian state television said there had been fighting in Tremseh
and accused “armed terrorist groups” of committing a massacre
there, but gave no death toll. It said three soldiers had been
killed.
Opposition reports also said rebels of the Free Syrian Army had
been killed in a battle. Lt. Ibrahim Zuait Al-Tarkawai was among
rebels who died “defending the people of Tremseh,” the Hama
Revolution Leadership Council said.
“We can verify continuous fighting yesterday in the area of
Tremseh,” said United Nations monitoring mission chief General
Robert Mood. “This involved mechanized units, indirect fire, as
well as helicopters,” he said.
UN monitors were ready to “go in and seek verification of facts if
and when there is a credible cease-fire,” he said.
If scores of civilians were killed, this could be the worst
atrocity in 16 months of fighting between rebels and the forces of
President Bashar Assad. World powers are deadlocked over how to
halt the bloodshed, with Russia and China opposed to Western and
Arab calls for Assad to step down immediately.
Activists said the killing took place on Thursday, as the UN
Security Council began negotiating a potentially crucial new
resolution on Syria. Washington said it showed the need to move to
tougher action, but Russia again ruled out such a step.
“More than 220 people fell today in Tremseh. They died from
bombardment by tanks and helicopters, artillery shelling and
summary executions,” the Revolution Leadership Council of Hama
said in a statement.
The Sunni Muslim village, surrounded by farmland near the Orontes
River, was first shelled then invaded by pro-government Alawite
militiamen who swept in and killed victims one by one. Some
civilians were killed while trying to flee, it said.
Armed Assad loyalists known as Shabbiha have been accused
repeatedly of cold-blooded indiscriminate killings carried out on
the coattails of army offensives into rebel-held districts.
Another activist organization, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, said over 160 people were killed on Thursday in Hama
province, most of them in a massacre in Tremseh.
The Observatory said it had listed 40 victims by name so far,
among them dozens of rebel fighters. More than 30 of the dead were
completely burned. Some were killed with clubs and knives.
Fadi Sameh, an opposition activist from Tremseh, said he left the
town before the reported killing spree but was in touch with
residents. “It appears that Alawite militiamen from surrounding
villages descended on Tremseh after its rebel defenders pulled
out, and started killing the people. Whole houses have been
destroyed and burned from the shelling.
“Every family in the town seems to have members killed. We have
names of men, women and children from countless families,” he
said. Many bodies were taken to a local mosque, he added.
A local activist named Ahmed told Reuters there were 60 bodies at
the mosque of whom 20 were identified by name.
According to a detailed account by activists before news of the
massacre, a convoy of 25 vehicles with army and security forces
headed west after dawn on Thursday, with three armored vehicles
and five trucks towing artillery, passing through the town of
Muharda in the direction of the village of Tremseh.
“They blockaded the village from all four sides and began
violently and randomly firing on houses as a helicopter flew
overhead. As the attack happened the electricity and telephone
lines were cut. Residents gathered in the streets in a state of
fear and panic. They were unable to flee because of the blockade
from every side,” the report posted on activist websites said.
In June, it took United Nations monitors two days to reach the
site of an alleged massacre of 78 people shot or stabbed or burned
alive in the village of Mazraat Al-Qubeir, a Sunni hamlet, by
fighters of Assad’s Alawite sect.
Two weeks earlier the Syrian government denied responsiblity for
the massacre of 108 men, women and children in the town of Houla
on May 25, the vast majority of them executed according to a UN
report. Damascus was widely condemned for the atrocity.
Most of Assad’s political and military establishment are minority
Alawites, who form a branch of Shiite Islam. The revolt and the
fighters behind it, and the street protesters who launched the
revolt in March 2011, are mostly Sunni Muslims.
The insurgents cannot match the Syrian army’s firepower but they
have established footholds in villages, towns and even cities
across Syria, coming under attack from Assad’s forces to respond
fiercely with helicopter gunships and artillery.
Following high-profile defections of a family friend and a top
diplomat, both Sunnis, analysts said cracks were appearing in
Assad’s Alawite-dominated rule.
But Assad’s strongest strategic ally, Russia, stuck by him on
Thursday with a clear warning to his Western and Arab enemies that
it would not even consider a tough new UN resolution.
Britain, the United States, France and Germany want to make
compliance with a transition plan drafted by international envoy
Kofi Annan enforceable under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.
This would allow the council to authorize actions ranging from
diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.
Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Alexander Pankin warned Moscow would
use its veto if it had to. “We are definitely against Chapter 7,”
he said. “Anything can be negotiated, but we do not negotiate
this, this is a red line.”
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