Syria’s regime and opposition on Friday accused each other of killing more than 150 people in Treimsa village, with the latest carnage in the 16-month uprising triggering calls for tougher UN action.
France joined the opposition Syrian National Council in urging the UN Security Council to pass a binding resolution against Damascus, which pointed the finger at the “bloodthirsty media” and “terrorists” seeking intervention.
Security Council envoys had earlier failed to make any headway in talks on rival Russian and Western draft resolutions on Syria, as Moscow spurned calls for sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime troops with tanks and helicopter gunships were backed by militias armed with guns and knives as more than 150 people were slain in Treimsa on Thursday.
Rebel leader Abu Mohamad, chief of a group based north of Treimsa, said more than 200 people were slaughtered.
“Several dozen rebel fighters were among those killed,” said the Observatory, adding only around 40 of the dead had been identified, while 30 were burned and 18 were “summarily executed.”
“Some are estimating higher numbers, but even at around 150, especially considering how small the town is, this might be the biggest massacre committed in Syria since the start of the revolution,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
“The army must have got the green light to commit a massacre of this scale, and I bear President Bashar al-Assad responsible for the killing.”
An activist at the anti-regime Sham News Network said most of the dead were rebels and that the bloodbath happened when pro-regime forces retaliated following a Free Syrian Army attack on an army convoy. “At this stage, though we do not yet have the final count, the number of civilians killed by shelling is not more than seven,” the activist who identified himself as Jaafar told AFP. “The rest were members of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army.”
“An army convoy was on its way to the region of Hama when it was attacked by the FSA,” he said. “The army staged a counter-attack with the support of (pro-regime) reinforcements from (nearby) Alawite villages. The FSA resisted for an hour before it was defeated.”
If confirmed, the killing at Treimsa in the central province of Hama would rival the massacre at Houla on May 25, when a pro-Assad militia and government forces were accused of killing at least 108 people.
The Syrian National Council urged the Security Council to pass a binding resolution against Assad’s regime.
“To stop this bloody madness which threatens the entity of Syria, as well as peace and the security in the region and in the world, requires an urgent and sharp resolution of the Security Council under Chapter VII (of the UN Charter) which protects the Syrian people,” it said.
Chapter VII allows for punitive measures against regimes considered a threat to the peace, including economic sanctions and military intervention.
