the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
said Thursday, calling the latest atrocity "shocking and sickening."
Ban told of the attack on the UN monitors in a speech to the UN General Assembly when he said that Syria's
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
had "lost all legitimacy."
Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashir al-Assad "massacred" about 100 people including women and kiddies, the Syrian opposition said on Thursday, as the US demanded a full transfer of power in the country.
If reports of the killings in the central province of Hama prove accurate they will rank among the worst atrocities in Syria's 15-month uprising against Assad's embattled regime.
We have 100 deaths in the village of Al-Kubeir, among them 20 women and 20 children," Mohammed Sermini, front man for the exiled opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP.
The Syrian government denied responsibility, saying in a televised statement: "What a few media have reported on what happened in Al-Kubeir, in the Hama region, is completely false."
"A terrorist group committed a heinous crime in the Hama region which claimed nine victims. The reports by the media are contributing to spilling the blood of Syrians," the statement said.
Analysts said Syria risks descending into a long and bloody civil war with the Annan plan at a stalemate, the opposition badly fragmented and fierce resistance to any real changes by the Assad regime.