Activists: Women, kids slain in new Syria massacre

Syrian activists say 100 people were killed by government supporters Wednesday in the province of Hama, including many women and children. Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to quell the crisis continue to stall. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

By msnbc.com news services

Updated at 8:23 a.m. ET: BEIRUT -- Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar Assad stood accused by opponents on Thursday of a new massacre of scores of villagers hours before a divided U.N. Security Council convenes to review the crisis.

If confirmed, the killings of at least 78 people at Mazraat al-Qabeer, near Hama, will pile pressure on world powers to act, but there is little sign they can overcome a paralysis born of sharp divisions between Western and Arab states on the one hand and Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran on the other.

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Several activists who monitor the 15-month-old revolt gave accounts to Reuters that women and children were among the dead when the village in central Syria came under artillery bombardment before fighters moved in on the ground and shot and stabbed dozens of people to death.

Reports of mass killings have emerged not even two weeks after a recent massacre that killed about 100 people. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

Echoing descriptions of a massacre of 108 civilians at Houla on May 25, which Western powers blame on Assad's troops and loyalist "shabbiha" militia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "shabbiha headed into the area after the shelling and killed dozens of citizens, among them women and children."

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Some activists said at least 40 of the dead were women and children.

'Completely false'
The Syrian state news agency quoted an official source in Hama describing reports from Mazraat al-Qabeer as "completely false", saying security forces had intervened at the request of residents after a "terrorist group committed ... a monstrous crime", killing nine women and children.

Syrian authorities have also denied responsibility for the Houla killings, blaming foreign-backed Islamist militants.

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Shabbiha, drawn mostly from Assad's minority Alawite sect that is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, have been blamed for the killings of civilians from the Sunni Muslim majority. That has raised fears of an Iraq-style sectarian bloodbath and reinforced a wider regional confrontation between Shiite Iran and the mainly Sunni-led Arab states of the Middle East.

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Some 13,000 people have been killed in Syria over 15 months of repression and later armed rebellion.

The main Syrian National Council opposition group responded to reports of the new massacre by calling for stepped-up military assaults on Assad's forces.

The failure of a cease-fire brokered by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan in March to halt the bloodshed has raised questions about its continued worth. Annan, a former U.N. secretary-general, is to brief the Security Council later on Thursday in New York.

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A 300-member group of U.N. truce observers has been in Syria for weeks and can be expected to investigate the accounts from Mazraat al-Qabeer.

Events in Syria are difficult to verify as state authorities tightly restrict access for international media.

U.N. diplomats said they expected Annan to present the Security Council with a new proposal to rescue his failing peace plan - a "contact group" of world and regional powers.

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Rebel groups inside Syria, which helped escalate what began as popular demonstrations for democracy into what is approaching a civil war, say they are no longer bound by Annan's cease-fire and are calling for more foreign arms and other support.

Western leaders, wary of new military engagements in the Muslim world and especially of the explosively complex ethnic and religious mix that Syria represents, have offered sympathy but show no appetite for taking on Assad's redoubtable armed forces, which can call on Iran and Russia for supplies.

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In Washington on Wednesday, the United States and Saudi Arabia, among dozens of mostly Western and Arab countries in the Friends of Syria working group, called for further economic sanctions against Syria including an arms embargo, travel bans and tougher financial penalties.

Brutal shelling and attacks have made life inside of Syria's Homs harrowing and for those who try to flee, perilous.? NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

Separately, ministers and envoys from 15 countries and the European Union agreed at a meeting hosted by Turkey in Istanbul on Wednesday to convene a "coordination group" to provide support to the opposition but left unclear what this may entail.

The U.S. and its allies in Europe, Turkey and the Arab world also agreed to work on a political transition plan for Syria, hoping to persuade Russia to join a broadened diplomatic effort to ease Assad out of power, a senior U.S. official said.?

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But with neither Russia nor China present, and both remaining hostile to the idea of global sanctions against the Syrian government or any Libya-style military intervention, it was unclear what effect the show of unity might produce.?

Speaking in Beijing, Russia's foreign minister presented a counterproposal for international action, proposing a conference on Syria but with an emphasis on pressuring opposition groups to respect Annan's peace plan.?

Sergei Lavrov criticized the Friends of Syria meetings that the U.S. and its partners have been having for being "devoted exclusively to the support of the Syrian National Council and its radical demands." He said the Russian gathering would, by contrast, put pressure on the Syrian opposition to "end all violence and sit down for talks."?

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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