[h=3]By SAM DAGHER And NOUR MALAS[/h]BEIRUT—New evidence on last week's killings in a village in central Syria indicate that the bloodshed may have involved a raid by heavily armed government forces to arrest male rebels that quickly evolved into a lopsided gunbattle in which opposition fighters were obliterated, rather than a deliberate massacre of around 200 civilians as initially reported by Syrian opposition leaders and their Western allies.
Preliminary findings by a team of Syria-based United Nations observers may ease the pressure on Russia and China to back tougher measures against Bashar al-Assad's government, underscoring how competing narratives and interpretations of events in Syria continue to divide world powers over how to end a conflict now recognized by most as a civil war.
Two casualty lists with the names, genders and ages of victims compiled by separate activist networks and seen by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday also appeared to corroborate this version of events in Treimseh, northwest of the city of Hama. The majority of the 65 to 68 people identified so far were men in their 20s, most likely rebels from Treimseh and surrounding villages affiliated to the so-called Free Syrian Army of local fighters and defecting military personnel.
"On the basis of some of the destruction observed in the town and the witness accounts, the attack appears targeted at army defectors and activists," said Sausan Gosheh, spokesperson for the U.N. observer team in Syria, on Sunday, hours after the monitors visited the village.
In a news conference in Damascus earlier Sunday, Syria's foreign-ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, insisted that the regime had every right to dispatch troops to Treimseh on Thursday to confront the fighters, whom he said had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons and ammunition inside the village to use as a launch pad for attacks on army checkpoints in the Hama countryside.
Mr. Makdissi said initial reports of a civilian massacre and the strong reactions that followed from the likes of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were primarily intended to pressure Mr. Assad's ally Russia into backing a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution this week that would impose tough trade and financial sanctions on Damascus if it continues to use heavy weapons against populated areas.
Shaam News Network/Associated PressAn image from an activist's video shows what it says is a victim of Thursday's battle in Treimseh, Syria.
"They wanted a vitamin boost to defeat the wise Russian endeavors in the Security Council," he said.
The Obama administration appeared to soften its position on the Treimseh incident Sunday after Mrs. Clinton initially claimed around 200 Syrian civilians had been killed by security forces there.
"We'll be interested in the full report from the U.N.," said a senior U.S. official Sunday morning.
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U.S. officials said their initial estimates were based on the State Department's own reporting. The information drew from Syrian sources and nongovernmental organizations tracking the violence there, these officials said.
"Initial reports of a widespread massacre of civilians were seized upon by the West to shame Russia and bring it to support a more forceful Security Council resolution," said Robert Malley, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution think tank. "And, now, a second wave of reporting casting doubt on the earlier claims almost certainly will be seized upon by the Russians to fight back and call into question all that has been said."
Russia has shrugged off widespread criticism of its support of Mr. Assad, and there is scant evidence that President Vladimir Putin plans any shift ahead of a meeting with U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan in Moscow Tuesday. Moscow has long accused rebels of inciting violence and making exaggerated claims of civilian losses in a gambit to draw in foreign intervention in Syria.
A diplomat on the Security Council said there was no question about a government role in the incident, even if no massacre took place and it was instead a firefight.
"There seems to be no doubt about the regime's use of heavy weapons, which all Security Council members [including Russia] and Ban and Annan say is unacceptable in all circumstances," the diplomat said.
Russia says its support of Mr. Assad is based neither on commercial ties nor special fealty to the Syrian leader, but on wider worries about what might come afterward if his government is toppled. Although analysts say Moscow is increasingly ambivalent about Mr. Assad's ability to govern, the Kremlin also doesn't want to be seen as backing down in its confrontation with the West over Syria.
Syrian opposition leaders who held talks with officials in Moscow last week said the Russians were insisting that the opposition engage with regime officials on forming a transitional government, without providing specific guarantees that this would lead to Mr. Assad's departure.
—Alan Cullison
and Richard Boudreaux
in Moscow
and Jay Solomon
in Washington
contributed to this article.Write to Sam Dagher at [email protected] and Nour Malas at [email protected]
Preliminary findings by a team of Syria-based United Nations observers may ease the pressure on Russia and China to back tougher measures against Bashar al-Assad's government, underscoring how competing narratives and interpretations of events in Syria continue to divide world powers over how to end a conflict now recognized by most as a civil war.
Two casualty lists with the names, genders and ages of victims compiled by separate activist networks and seen by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday also appeared to corroborate this version of events in Treimseh, northwest of the city of Hama. The majority of the 65 to 68 people identified so far were men in their 20s, most likely rebels from Treimseh and surrounding villages affiliated to the so-called Free Syrian Army of local fighters and defecting military personnel.
"On the basis of some of the destruction observed in the town and the witness accounts, the attack appears targeted at army defectors and activists," said Sausan Gosheh, spokesperson for the U.N. observer team in Syria, on Sunday, hours after the monitors visited the village.
In a news conference in Damascus earlier Sunday, Syria's foreign-ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, insisted that the regime had every right to dispatch troops to Treimseh on Thursday to confront the fighters, whom he said had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons and ammunition inside the village to use as a launch pad for attacks on army checkpoints in the Hama countryside.
Mr. Makdissi said initial reports of a civilian massacre and the strong reactions that followed from the likes of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were primarily intended to pressure Mr. Assad's ally Russia into backing a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution this week that would impose tough trade and financial sanctions on Damascus if it continues to use heavy weapons against populated areas.
Shaam News Network/Associated PressAn image from an activist's video shows what it says is a victim of Thursday's battle in Treimseh, Syria.
"They wanted a vitamin boost to defeat the wise Russian endeavors in the Security Council," he said.
The Obama administration appeared to soften its position on the Treimseh incident Sunday after Mrs. Clinton initially claimed around 200 Syrian civilians had been killed by security forces there.
"We'll be interested in the full report from the U.N.," said a senior U.S. official Sunday morning.
[h=3]Related Video[/h]
U.S. officials said that Syria has begun moving parts of its vast chemical weapons arsenal out of storage facilities. Julian Barnes has details on The News Hub. (Photo: Reuters)
[h=3]Syria in the Spotlight[/h]Take a look back over the highlights of the past year in Syria in a timeline, and review the latest events in a map.
U.S. officials said their initial estimates were based on the State Department's own reporting. The information drew from Syrian sources and nongovernmental organizations tracking the violence there, these officials said.
"Initial reports of a widespread massacre of civilians were seized upon by the West to shame Russia and bring it to support a more forceful Security Council resolution," said Robert Malley, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution think tank. "And, now, a second wave of reporting casting doubt on the earlier claims almost certainly will be seized upon by the Russians to fight back and call into question all that has been said."
Russia has shrugged off widespread criticism of its support of Mr. Assad, and there is scant evidence that President Vladimir Putin plans any shift ahead of a meeting with U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan in Moscow Tuesday. Moscow has long accused rebels of inciting violence and making exaggerated claims of civilian losses in a gambit to draw in foreign intervention in Syria.
A diplomat on the Security Council said there was no question about a government role in the incident, even if no massacre took place and it was instead a firefight.
"There seems to be no doubt about the regime's use of heavy weapons, which all Security Council members [including Russia] and Ban and Annan say is unacceptable in all circumstances," the diplomat said.
Russia says its support of Mr. Assad is based neither on commercial ties nor special fealty to the Syrian leader, but on wider worries about what might come afterward if his government is toppled. Although analysts say Moscow is increasingly ambivalent about Mr. Assad's ability to govern, the Kremlin also doesn't want to be seen as backing down in its confrontation with the West over Syria.
Syrian opposition leaders who held talks with officials in Moscow last week said the Russians were insisting that the opposition engage with regime officials on forming a transitional government, without providing specific guarantees that this would lead to Mr. Assad's departure.
—Alan Cullison
and Richard Boudreaux
in Moscow
and Jay Solomon
in Washington
contributed to this article.Write to Sam Dagher at [email protected] and Nour Malas at [email protected]