NEWS - ~ Houla: How a massacre unfolded

At least 108 people were killed in Taldou, the majority of them women
and children
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The village of Taldou, near the town of Houla inSyria's Homs province
was the scene of one of the worst massacres in the country's
14-month-long uprising on Friday.
United Nations observers on the ground have confirmed that at least
108people were killed, including 49 children and 34 women. Some were
killed by shell fire, others appear to have been shot or stabbed at
close range.
But at whose hands they died remains a matter of contention.
Anti-government activists and eyewitnesses interviewed by a limited
number of journalists and human rights groups at thescene point the
finger at the Syrian army and the shabiha , a sectarian
civilianmilitia that supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The government however denies all responsibility, saying its soldiers
were attacked and armed terrorists went on to shoot and stab
civilians.
The United Nations has condemned the"indiscriminate and
disproportionate use of force", but Maj Gen Robert Mood, the head of
the UN Supervision Mission in Syria(UNSMIS), said "the circumstances
that led to these tragic killings are stillunclear".
I was in a room by myselfwhen I heard the sound of a man. He was
shouting and yelling at my family. I looked outside the room and saw
all of my family members shot"
Survivor of the Houla massacre
He told a closed session of the UN Security Council that there is
evidence of tank shelling, artillery fire and "physical abuse". He
confirmed that the deaths were from shell shrapnel and gunfire at
"point-blank" range, but did not say who the mission thought was
responsible for the close-range killing.
Protest attacked
The picture being pieced together by activists, survivors and the
limited number of international journalists and human rights
organisations in Syria is of an attack that began with the army
shelling the town and ended with militiamen killing people
house-by-house late into the night.
Reports suggest that at about 13:00 local time (11:00 GMT) on Friday,
just after midday prayers, soldiers fired on a protest in Taldou in
the Houla area to disperse the crowds.
Some accounts say that opposition fighters then attacked the Syrian
army position where the firing was coming from.
According to Syria's foreignministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi,
"hundreds of gunmen" armed with machine guns, mortars andanti-tank
missiles attacked soldiers, killing three.
Activists and eyewitnesses say the Syrian army shelledthe town,
reportedly at first with tank fire then with mortars, in a sustained
bombardment that lasted at least two hours.
This tallies with UN accounts of tank and mortar shells in civilian
areas. The UN Security Council issued a statement saying that "such
outrageous use of force against civilian population constitutes a
violation of applicable international law".
Mr Makdissi said that the army did not send tanks into the village and
security forces remained in their defensive positions.
House-to-house attacks
Any civilian deaths, he said,were the result of "armed terrorist
gangs" going house to house and killing men, women and children.
But according to activists and eyewitnesses interviewed by Human
Rights Watch, British broadcaster Channel 4 and others, army shelling
paved the way for a concerted ground attack bythe Alawite-dominated
pro-government militia, the shabiha.
Taldou, Houla region
The region of Houla, in thewest of Syria, comprises several villages
and small towns
The village of Taldou lies around 2km south-west of the main town,
also called Houla
The area is in the provinceof Homs, which has seen heavy fighting in
recent months
Houla's villages are predominantly Sunni Muslim, but the region is
ringed by a number of Alawite villages - the sect of the Syrian
president Bashar al-Assad
Their reports suggest that men from the shabiha entered people's
houses in army fatigues and either cut their throats or shot them in
the head from approximately 16:00 to 01:00 on Saturday morning.
One opposition activist from the area, Hamza Omar, told the BBC: "The
shabiha militias attacked the houses. They had no mercy. We took
pictures of children, under 10 years [old] their hands tied, and shot
at close range."
If that is the case, it is possible the killers were drawn from a
string of largely Alawite villages to the south of Houla region.
Fearing reprisals, some residents there have apparently been donating
blood to help the approximately 300 injured.

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