Damascus
(AsiaNews/Agencies) - UN observers have reached Qubair where signs of a
massacre are everywhere. However, there are no telltale signs of who might have
carried it out, how and what the number of victims is.
The
group of 25 UN observers reached the village mid-afternoon yesterday, along
with a BBC reporter who described a "remarkably
appalling scene" of burned homes containing pools of blood and bits of human
flesh.
According
to the anti-Assad opposition, Syrian troops and pro-Assad Shabiba militias were
responsible for the killing of 78 people, including women and children.
The
government has said instead that nine people were killed by "terrorists", the
term it uses for all regime opponents.
Few
bodies were found in the village. For a local man, military lorries came in
after the slaughter and took them away.
"We
found burned homes, and at least one burnt with bodies inside," Sausan Ghosheh,
spokeswoman for the UN observers, said in her account posted yesterday on the
mission's website.
"Residents
from neighbouring villages came to speak to us, but none of them were witness
to the killings on Wednesday," Ghosheh said. "The circumstances surrounding
this incident are yet not clear, and we have not yet been able to verify the
numbers."
The
Qubair attack follows the massacre of 108 people in Houla on 25 May.
Syria's
opposition also blamed this massacre on army soldiers and Shabiba militias. The
government blamed "terrorists" trying to sink the peace plan brokered by Kofi
Annan, the United Nations-Arab League special envoy.
Other
observers like Chandra Muzaffar, president of International Movement for a Just
World, doubt that Assad is behind these massacres. For the latter, the Annan
plan is the only way for Assad to stay in power.
Many
in the international community are pushing for Assad's removal. Saudi Arabia
and Qatar and, according to the Washington
Post, the United States want Assad out, and are arming the opposition as
well as extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Salafis.
Three
car bombs exploded yesterday in Idlib, Rif Dimashq and Qudssaya, near Damascus,
killing police, security forces and civilians.
The
United States and Great Britain are putting also pressure on China and Russia, Syria's
allies, to topple Assad.
Former
British Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has urged Turkey to lead a NATO threat to
intervene in Syria as a way of ending the "devastating" impotence of
the international community.
For
Kofi Annan, "Syria can quickly go from a tipping point to a breaking
point. The danger of a full-scale civil war is imminent and real, with
catastrophic consequences for Syria and the region".
