[h=3]By NOUR MALAS[/h] BEIRUT—Syrian activists reported two attacks by pro-government forces that they say killed hundreds of people, in new reports of large-scale killings that echo the brutal attacks at Houla two weeks ago.
If confirmed, the reports could significantly raise the pressure on the Syrian regime ahead of a briefing to the United Nations Security Council by special envoy Kofi Annan on Thursday, as nations scramble again to respond to the spiraling violence in Syria.
Unlike the massacre at Houla in western Syria, accounts of the killings in Qubair—a tiny village in Hama province—and Heffe—a city in the western Lattakia province—emerged slowly throughout Wednesday night, but with little of the video footage and photographs that usually accompany activist accounts in the Syrian uprising.
AFP/Getty Images A handout picture released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network shows Syrian rebels posing for a picture during the funeral procession of a man killed in violence in Silkin in the northwestern province of Idlib on Wednesday.
Residents reached by telephone, and activists steering committees that oversee opposition activities in those provinces, said government shelling and door-to-door raids were so severe that they have been unable to get footage out. U.N. monitors in Syria, who visited Houla the day after the killings and provided crucial independently eyewitness accounts, weren't able to immediately reach the sites of the new reported massacres.
Syria's government said the accounts were false. Quoting an official from Hama, the state news agency said an armed, terrorist group carried out the "terrible crime" in Qubair, killing nine women and children. The government has routinely accused the opposition of staging killings or fabricating events to drum up support for international intervention in Syria.
In one of the first international responses to the reported killings, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said the reports, if true, indicated "another brutal and sickening attack."
"If this is true, it will be once again President Assad demonstrating that his regime is completely illegitimate," Mr. Cameron told reporters in Oslo, Norway. He called for "concerted action by the international community."
Special envoy on Syria Kofi Annan will brief the U.N. Security Council later Thursday, where he is also expected to discuss his proposal to bring together major world powers to start talks on a political transition in Syria. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday appointed a new prime minister—the agriculture minister in the current cabinet—and tasked him with forming a new government. The opposition has rejected the government's reform program, which has included new parliamentary elections and now a new government.
Syrian analysts say President Assad aims to send a signal to Syria's poor, neglected countryside peripheries—many of them now opposition strongholds—by appointing an agriculture minister to steer the new government. Many in Syria's opposition and an increasing number of Syrians not aligned with the antigovernment movement say political reforms appear meaningless amid daily assassinations, kidnappings, and killings that appear to have a sectarian motive.
Qubair on the outskirts of Hama is a village of some 140 people, mostly Sunni Muslims from Syria's majority religion. They are supportive of the uprising, and residents reached by telephone said pro-government thugs, called Shabiha in Syria, raided the village from two neighboring Alawite villages. Residents described security forces and troops on armored personnel carriers spraying machine-guns through the village. Two residents said security forces, backed by Shabiha militiamen, burned houses and stabbed women and children to death. Both residents gave a death toll of 86 people killed in their village.
The accounts very closely matched reports from Houla, where residents also blamed the killings on Alawites, an esoteric minority Muslim sect which the Assad family, and the high ranks of the military and security, draw from.
The prospect of an unfolding sectarian, civil conflict that appears to be moving beyond an already-messy battle between government and opposition forces complicates the international effort to stem the bloodshed in Syria. The government and opposition trade blame for the apparent sect-based killings.
Syrian allies Russia and China continued to push on Thursday for a settlement that would work through Mr. Annan's six-point peace plan, despite some criticism that the plan has allowed Mr. Assad pursue a bloody crackdown without showing any sign of pressuring him to change course.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said Thursday that China and Russia have agreed that "the Syrian issue should be resolved based on envoy Annan's six-point proposal within the U.N. framework."
"You can't say that because you dislike a country's system, you can then think of ways to overturn its government," Mr. Cheng told reporters in Beijing, Reuters reported. He repeatedly stressed that Beijing and Moscow both oppose what he called "neointerventionism" in Syria and other countries and that, despite the recent killings at Houla, the matter was still an internal one for Syria.
The so-called contact group Mr. Annan is proposing, which would include countries that influence the Syrian regime like Russia and Iran, has already faced some resistance. Western officials ay they reject engaging with Tehran, which they allege has supported the Syrian government in its crackdown, on a Syrian transition.
If confirmed, the reports could significantly raise the pressure on the Syrian regime ahead of a briefing to the United Nations Security Council by special envoy Kofi Annan on Thursday, as nations scramble again to respond to the spiraling violence in Syria.
Unlike the massacre at Houla in western Syria, accounts of the killings in Qubair—a tiny village in Hama province—and Heffe—a city in the western Lattakia province—emerged slowly throughout Wednesday night, but with little of the video footage and photographs that usually accompany activist accounts in the Syrian uprising.
AFP/Getty Images A handout picture released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network shows Syrian rebels posing for a picture during the funeral procession of a man killed in violence in Silkin in the northwestern province of Idlib on Wednesday.
Residents reached by telephone, and activists steering committees that oversee opposition activities in those provinces, said government shelling and door-to-door raids were so severe that they have been unable to get footage out. U.N. monitors in Syria, who visited Houla the day after the killings and provided crucial independently eyewitness accounts, weren't able to immediately reach the sites of the new reported massacres.
Syria's government said the accounts were false. Quoting an official from Hama, the state news agency said an armed, terrorist group carried out the "terrible crime" in Qubair, killing nine women and children. The government has routinely accused the opposition of staging killings or fabricating events to drum up support for international intervention in Syria.
In one of the first international responses to the reported killings, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said the reports, if true, indicated "another brutal and sickening attack."
"If this is true, it will be once again President Assad demonstrating that his regime is completely illegitimate," Mr. Cameron told reporters in Oslo, Norway. He called for "concerted action by the international community."
Special envoy on Syria Kofi Annan will brief the U.N. Security Council later Thursday, where he is also expected to discuss his proposal to bring together major world powers to start talks on a political transition in Syria. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday appointed a new prime minister—the agriculture minister in the current cabinet—and tasked him with forming a new government. The opposition has rejected the government's reform program, which has included new parliamentary elections and now a new government.
Syrian analysts say President Assad aims to send a signal to Syria's poor, neglected countryside peripheries—many of them now opposition strongholds—by appointing an agriculture minister to steer the new government. Many in Syria's opposition and an increasing number of Syrians not aligned with the antigovernment movement say political reforms appear meaningless amid daily assassinations, kidnappings, and killings that appear to have a sectarian motive.
Qubair on the outskirts of Hama is a village of some 140 people, mostly Sunni Muslims from Syria's majority religion. They are supportive of the uprising, and residents reached by telephone said pro-government thugs, called Shabiha in Syria, raided the village from two neighboring Alawite villages. Residents described security forces and troops on armored personnel carriers spraying machine-guns through the village. Two residents said security forces, backed by Shabiha militiamen, burned houses and stabbed women and children to death. Both residents gave a death toll of 86 people killed in their village.
The accounts very closely matched reports from Houla, where residents also blamed the killings on Alawites, an esoteric minority Muslim sect which the Assad family, and the high ranks of the military and security, draw from.
The prospect of an unfolding sectarian, civil conflict that appears to be moving beyond an already-messy battle between government and opposition forces complicates the international effort to stem the bloodshed in Syria. The government and opposition trade blame for the apparent sect-based killings.
Syrian allies Russia and China continued to push on Thursday for a settlement that would work through Mr. Annan's six-point peace plan, despite some criticism that the plan has allowed Mr. Assad pursue a bloody crackdown without showing any sign of pressuring him to change course.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said Thursday that China and Russia have agreed that "the Syrian issue should be resolved based on envoy Annan's six-point proposal within the U.N. framework."
"You can't say that because you dislike a country's system, you can then think of ways to overturn its government," Mr. Cheng told reporters in Beijing, Reuters reported. He repeatedly stressed that Beijing and Moscow both oppose what he called "neointerventionism" in Syria and other countries and that, despite the recent killings at Houla, the matter was still an internal one for Syria.
The so-called contact group Mr. Annan is proposing, which would include countries that influence the Syrian regime like Russia and Iran, has already faced some resistance. Western officials ay they reject engaging with Tehran, which they allege has supported the Syrian government in its crackdown, on a Syrian transition.