Syria defiantly denies killings, UN council meets

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syria on Sunday strongly denied allegations that its forces killed scores of people ? including women and children ? in one of the deadliest days of the country's uprising, and the U.N. Security Council held an emergency session on the massacre.

The killing of more than 100 people in the west-central area of Houla on Friday brought widespread international criticism of the regime of President Bashar Assad, although differences emerged from world powers over whether his forces were exclusively to blame.

Britain and France had proposed issuing a press statement condemning the attack and pointing a finger at the Syrian government, but Russia told Security Council members it could not agree and wanted a briefing first by Norwegian Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. observer team in the country. Russia has been Syria's most powerful ally during the uprising, and along with China has used its veto power to shield Damascus from U.N. sanctions.

The massacre in Houla on Friday cast fresh doubts on the ability of an international peace plan put forward by envoy Kofi Annan to end Syria's 14-month-old crisis.

The brutality of the killings became clear in amateur videos posted online that showed scores of bodies, many of them young children, in neat rows and covered with blood and deep wounds. A later video showed the bodies, wrapped in white sheets, being placed in a sprawling mass grave.

Mood told the Security Council that U.N. observers at the scene now estimate 108 people were killed in Houla, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told reporters outside the council chamber. The U.N. later counted 49 children and 34 women among the dead.

The U.N. had earlier said its observers found tank and artillery shells at the site, suggesting the regime's well-equipped forces were to blame.

A council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that after Mood's briefing, council members began working on the text of a press statement that would be along the lines of a statement issued Saturday by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Annan, his predecessor and the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria. Their statement condemned the "indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in violation of international law and Syrian commitments to stop using heavy weapons in populated areas. They demanded that the Syrian government stop using such weapons.

Activists from the area said the army pounded the villages with artillery and clashed with local rebels after protests Friday. Some activists said pro-regime thugs later stormed the area, doing the bulk of the killing by gunning down men in the streets and stabbing women and children in their homes.

The Syrian government rejected that narrative Sunday, painting a vastly different picture.

Speaking to reporters in Damascus, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said Syrian security forces were in their local bases Friday when they were attacked by "hundreds of heavily armed gunmen" firing mortars, heavy machine guns and anti-tank missiles, staring a nine-hour battle that killed three soldiers and wounded 16.

The soldiers fought back, but didn't leave their bases, he said.

"No Syrian tank or artillery entered this place where the massacres were committed," he said. "The security forces did not leave their places because they were in a state of self-defense."

He blamed the gunmen for what he called a "terrorist massacre" in Houla and accused the media, Western officials and others of spinning a "tsunami of lies" to justify foreign intervention in Syria.

Makdissi did not provide videos or other evidence to support his version of events, nor did he give a death toll. He said the government had formed a committee to investigate and share its findings with Annan, who is due to visit Damascus in the coming days.

Throughout the uprising, the government has deployed snipers, troops and thugs to quash protests and shelled opposition areas.

A video released by the U.N. team in Syria on Sunday showed observers in Houla the day after the attack, meeting with local rebels and watching residents collect more bodies for burial. It also showed two destroyed armored personnel carriers ? suggesting that local rebels put up more of a fight than the activists acknowledged.

At U.N. headquarters, Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Pankin told reporters as he headed into the closed-door Security Council meeting that "there is substantial ground to believe that the majority of those who were killed were either slashed, cut by knives, or executed at point-blank distance."

"We have to establish whether it was Syrian authorities ... before we agree on something," he said.

Annan's peace plan for Syria, sponsored by the U.N. and the Arab League, is one of the few points of agreement among world powers about Syria's crisis, which began in March 2011 with protests calling for political change. As the government violently cracked down on the uprising, many in the opposition took up arms to defend themselves and attack government troops.

The U.N. put the death toll weeks ago at more than 9,000. Hundreds more have been killed since then.

Daily violence has marred the plan since a cease-fire was supposed to begin April 12. The Houla attack made Friday the deadliest day since the truce was announced, and has cast a shadow over Annan's visit.

In another defiant move, Syria on Sunday denied permission for Annan's deputy to travel to Damascus with his boss, a senior Arab League official said. The rejection of former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa was intended as a slap to the Arab League, which suspended Syria's membership and approved sanctions against it last year.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Annan's spokesman declined to comment.

The Houla attacks caused outrage among American and international officials that Makdissi's comments Sunday failed to assuage.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he would summon Syria's most senior diplomat in the U.K. on Monday so the Foreign Office could "make clear our condemnation of the Syrian regime's actions."

Kuwait, which currently heads the 22-member Arab League, called for an Arab ministerial meeting to "take steps to put an end to the oppressive practices against the Syrian people."

Switzerland's Foreign Ministry urged that an international inquiry be convened, saying the killings "could constitute a war crime."

In Paris, the head of the exile Syrian National Council also condemned the killings.

"The kids of Houla are the kids of all of Syria," Burhan Ghalioun told reporters. "Killing the kids of Houla is like killing the kids of all of Syria."

Anti-regime activists scoffed at the government's version of events. One Houla activist said via Skype that the area had at most 300 fighters, but that none had more than rifles and that they often lacked ammunition.

"If we had anti-tank missiles, there would be no tanks left in the area," said Mohammed, declining to give his full name for fear of retribution.

Activists reported shelling, gunfire and arrest raids in opposition areas throughout the country Sunday as well as clashes between regime forces and rebels in a number of areas. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed at least 14 civilians, while rebels killed nine soldiers.

Activist claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government bars most media from operating in the country.

Annan's plan calls for eventual talks between all sides on a political solution to the crisis.

The U.S. hopes Russia can use its influence with Damascus to press for a political transition similar to that seen in Yemen. In February, longtime Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh passed power to his deputy in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

U.S. officials say Russia does not oppose a political transition in Syria in theory, but has not agreed to specific terms.

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Lederer reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writers Adam Schreck in Dubai and Hamza Hendawi in Cairo contributed to this report.

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