Assad’s troops kill 100 in fresh massacre :- 8.6.12-TOI

Victims Include 20 Women, 20 Kids: Oppn

Damascus/Beirut: Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad “massacred” about 100 people, including many women and children, at a village in central Syria, the opposition Syrian National Council said.
    “We have 100 deaths in the village of Al-Kubeir” in the Hama province on Wednesday, “among them 20 women and 20 children,” said Mohammed Sermini, spokesman for the exiled opposition coalition.
    Other sources also reported that a “massacre” had taken place in the same area, including opposition activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tentatively put the number of dead at 87. But the group, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, is still documenting names.
    Pro-regime shabiha militia armed with guns and knives carried out the “new massacre” at a farm after shelling by regular troops, the Britain-based Observatory said in a statement.
    “What is certain is that dozens of people died, including women and children,” the watchdog’s Rami Abdel Rahman said.
    At least 108 people were killed in a two-day massacre that began on May 25 near the central town of Houla, most of them women and children who were summarily executed, according to the UN.
    The reports came after Russia and China said they were “decisively against” intervention or regime change in Syria, as Arab and Western calls mounted for strong international action in the conflict.
    The United States endorsed an Arab proposal to invoke the UN Charter’s tough Chapter VII, while refraining from supporting its powers to initiate military intervention. AGENCIES
Survivor recounts tale of horror
    Six hours after tanks pulled out of Mazraat al-Kubeir, a Syrian farmer said he returned to find only charred bodies among the smouldering homes of his once-tranquil hamlet. “There was smoke rising from the buildings and a horrible smell of human flesh burning,” said the man who told how he had watched Syrian troops and “shabbiha” gunmen attack his village as he hid in his family olive grove.