Security Council blames Syria for shelling Houla

Updated at 10:46 p.m. ET

(AP) UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council on Sunday blamed the Syrian government for attacking residential areas of the town of Houla with artillery and tank shelling and also condemned the close-range killings of civilians there — but avoided saying who was responsible for the massacre of more than 100 men, women and children.

The council said in a press statement after an emergency meeting that the "outrageous use of force" against civilians violated international law and Syrian government commitments under previous U.N. resolutions to stop all violence, including the use of heavy weapons in populated areas. It said "those responsible for acts of violence must be held accountable."

It demanded that the Syrian government immediately halt the use of heavy weapons and pull its troops out of cities and towns, and it asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. observer mission in Syria to continue investigating the attacks in Houla. Ban, in a letter to the council, called for "a transparent, independent and impartial international investigation."

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Britain and France had proposed issuing a press statement condemning the attack on civilians and pointing the finger at the Syrian government for Friday's massacre. But Russia called for an emergency council meeting saying it first wanted a briefing by Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the unarmed U.N. observer mission.

After Mood's briefing, Germany's U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig said "there is a clear footprint of the government in the massacre."

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said no circumstances justify the use of heavy weapons, which Mood confirmed. "The fact is that this is an atrocity and it was perpetrated by the Syrian government," he said.

But Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Pankin said "it still remains unclear what happened and what triggered what."

"It's difficult to imagine that the Syrian government would not only shell and mortar but also use point-blank execution against 40 plus women and 30 plus children under age 10," he said. "This is definitely the atrocity that has to be investigated."

Russia, which considers Syria its closest Mideast ally, has used its Security Council veto power to block resolutions raising the possibility of U.N. action against President Bashar Assad. The assault on Houla was one of the bloodiest single events in Syria's 15-month uprising against Assad's regime.

While a Security Council press statement is weaker than a presidential statement, which becomes part of the council record, or a legally binding U.N. resolution, it must be approved by all 15 members and therefore reflects strong council backing.

"We got a very strong statement and strong support from the Security Council," U.S. deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo told AP. "I think it's very clear that everyone is absolutely appalled at the atrocities that took place and the council understands we need to be unified in this regard."

The Syrian government on Sunday denied responsibility for the Houla massacre, blaming the killings on "hundreds of heavily armed gunmen" who also attacked soldiers in the area.

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari called the massacre "an appalling, horrific, unjustified and unjustifiable crime" and blamed "armed terrorist groups." He said "it was not a coincidence" that the massacre took place just before international envoy Kofi Annan is scheduled to arrive in Syria.

He said those who committed the massacre were "seeking escalation and mobilization by the Security Council against the Syrian government."

Russia's Pankin said there is definitely "a third force" operating in Syria — terrorists or external forces who want intervention and an opposition victory.

Mood told the closed-door council session that U.N. observers, after revisiting the scene in the Houla area, had raised the death toll to 108 people, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said outside the council chamber. Those killed include 49 children and 34 women, Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for international envoy Kofi Annan, told the AP. Mood said Saturday that observers confirmed from an examination of ordnance found at the scene that artillery and tank shells were fired.

The council statement "condemned in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of Houla, near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood."

It also "condemned the killing of civilians by shooting at close range and by severe physical abuse," but avoided assessing responsibility for the killings.

In his letter to the Security Council, Ban said villages in the Houla area have been outside government control but surrounded by a heavy Syrian military presence.

When U.N. observers visited the area on Saturday, a day after the attacks, Ban said they saw 85 corpses in a mosque in Taldou and "observed shotgun wounds and wounds consistent with artillery fire." He said "the patrol also saw artillery and tank shells, as well as fresh tank tracks" and observed that "many buildings had been destroyed by heavy weapons."

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[EnkiduTammuz]

Is this a new plot to replay Lybia, Kosovo scenario?
I wonder what the escalation of Atrocity has to do with the visit of Ammar Abulhamid (prominent opposition member) to Kosovo and setting up training camp for the SFA ?
Besides I live in Syria and I know how the rebel operate, we have seen on all news media when the UN envoy lead by Gen Mood were escorted by the rebel when visiting the Houla massacre site, it was clear the area is under their control..! how on earth the Syrian government forces managed to enter Houla, kill the children point blank and retreat, unnoticed? nobody filmed them? nobody shot at them?
I just think there's something fishy here
How can the UN blame a side before a real investigation takes place ?

[Upriver88]

A set up, just as the Racak "massacre" was in Kosovo.
Ammar Abulhamid is now Hashim Thaci's star student it seems.

[LCCLYDE]

I have often noticed that Russia except in the old days of it being the USSR dont send armies to fight in The middle east nor has China went on a world hopping military adventure.I am not saying they dont exercise it military but it seems its within thier region.How come the U.S. has to be the worlds police with missions everywhere.I know that the U.S.was a key plater in Libya but we took a backseat publicly to France and the U.K. Then in the matter of Syria.Assad is a butcher,his father was a butcher and taught the son well.These guys know they are in a fight for thier lives.They have no other choice.To them coming in second is a death sentence therefore Assad will throw everything at the opposition.The FSA obviosly do not have heavy weapons nor does al-queda.Assad is behind all of thisand is stalling,dragging out his date with a reckoning.

[EnkiduTammuz]

It's easy to label a person you don't like as a Butcher, or Evil .. or piling WMD.. although no hard evidence except what you said, or a friend told a friend who told the correspondence of a News channel.
It's easier to assume "they have no other choice except death sentence" without evidence again.
And it's yet easy to ignore all the reports of weaponry heavy and other that was shipped and are used by the FSA ....
<a href="http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/american-m4a1-rifle-being-used-by-the-free-syrian-army/"> The weapons </a>
<a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/may2012/syri-m25.shtml"> Weapons report </a>

But yet no matter how much one assumes or ignores things the truth remains truth and facts can't turn into fiction!

[insite777]

You know how propaganda goes - it might turn out that terrorists have infiltrated the Free Syrian Army and are responsible. This could be a chess play to gain quick assistance to the wrong people. In my opinion the National Debt is too high to spend on another "occupation". Let someone else go over there this time!

[bluesky4now]

So what? Gosh, what is the UN going to do??

[FormerUSMCSergeant]

The savagery demonstrated in the murdering of children is absolutely astounding.

How any of the participants in such horrific and unjustified violence can sleep at night is beyond me.

They are, indeed, savages in every sense of the word.

[fastdraw2]

Naughty Syria. Bad Syria. No doggie treat for you.

Can you just see Assad, wherever he is, just laughing his ass off? Nobody's going to do a thing to him, and he knows it, because of all the participants in this little scenario he's the only one with a pair of balls.

[sinful-Silence]

Everyone Knows who are responsible for this killings, Saudi King, UAE all US allies. Shame on all of you. your days are numbered.

[bluesky4now]

Er, ok. Don't go away angry..just go away.

[sinful-Silence]

the people responsible for this, are United states, Britain, saudi king and the UAE. may all face justice one day

[Overruled1]

I just read on the article it was the Syrians who are responsible.
The US strongly condemned the Syrian leadership and want them to step down or else...or else what I don't know, because China and Russia keep vetoing any resolutions leading to intervention.

The Republicans during an election year have pulled all the stops and started down the dirty road of as Bush would say "politicun".