About 220 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in a village in the rebellious Hama region when it was bombarded by helicopter gunships and tanks then stormed by militiamen who slaughtered some families, opposition sources said yesterday.
UN special envoy Kofi Annan said he was "shocked and appalled" by news of "intense fighting, significant casualties, and the confirmed use of heavy weaponry such as artillery, tanks and helicopters" in the village of Tremseh.
"I condemn these atrocities in the strongest possible terms," Annan said in a statement.
There were no independent accounts of the number of dead or how they were killed. UN monitors in Syria are currently confined to Damascus because of mounting violence.
According to a detailed account by activists before news of the massacre, a convoy of 25 vehicles with army and security forces headed west after dawn on Thursday, with three armoured vehicles and five trucks towing artillery, passing through the town of Muharda in the direction of the village of Tremseh.
"They blockaded the village from all four sides and began violently and randomly firing on houses as a helicopter flew overhead. As the attack happened the electricity and telephone lines were cut.
Residents gathered in the streets in a state of fear and panic. They were unable to flee because of the blockade from every side," the report posted on activist Web sites said.
Syrian state television said there had been fighting in Tremseh and accused "armed terrorist groups" of committing a massacre there, but gave no death toll. It said three soldiers had been killed.
If confirmed, this could be the worst atrocity in 16 months of fighting between rebels and the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
ACCOUNTS VARY
Activists said the killing took place on Thursday, as the UN Security Council began negotiating a potentially crucial new resolution on Syria. Washington said it showed the need to move to tougher action, but Russia again ruled out such a step.
"More than 220 people fell today in Tremseh. They died from bombardment by tanks and helicopters, artillery shelling and summary executions," the Revolution Leadership Council of Hama said in a statement.
The Sunni Muslim village, surrounded by farmland near the Orontes River, was first shelled then invaded by pro-government Alawite militiamen who swept in and killed victims one by one. Some civilians were killed while trying to flee, it said.
Armed Assad loyalists known as Shabbiha have been accused repeatedly of cold-blooded indiscriminate killings carried out on the coattails of army offensives into rebel-held districts.
Another activist organisation, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said over 160 people were killed on Thursday in Hama province, most of them in a massacre in Tremseh.
Most of Assad's political and military establishment are minority Alawites, who form a branch of Shia Islam. The revolt and the fighters behind it, and the street protesters who launched the revolt in March 2011, are mostly Sunni Muslims.
The insurgents cannot match the Syrian army's firepower but they have established footholds in villages, towns and even cities across Syria, coming under attack from Assad's forces to respond fiercely with helicopter gunships and artillery.
World powers are deadlocked over how to halt the bloodshed, with Russia and China opposed to Western and Arab calls for Assad to step down immediately.