Reports of new 'massacre' in Syria

Opposition activists in Syria say that pro-government armed groups backed by security forces have killed scores of people in a village in Hama province.

Both the Syria's Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put the number of dead in Wednesday's attack on the village of al-Qubayr at more than 86.

Syria's government denied any role in the killings.

More than 20 children and 20 women were reportedly among those who died in the villages of Qubair and Maarzaf, in what the activists called a "massacre".

Syrian state TV said troops found some bodies after attacking "terrorists".

Neither account could be confirmed, but it comes less than two weeks after 108 people were killed in Houla.

Witnesses on Wednesday blamed pro-government militiamen, while the government of President Bashar al-Assad accused "armed groups" seeking to trigger foreign military intervention.

Activist groups reported that Qubair and Maarzaf, about 20km (12 miles) north-west of the city of Hama, had come under heavy bombardment from security forces backed by tanks.

But they said much of the killing in Qubair was done by accompanying groups of pro-government militiamen known as shabiha, who had come from nearby pro-government villages.

The activists said they shot at close range and stabbed many people, including women and children under the age of two, and that some of the bodies were later burnt in houses which were set on fire. Others were taken away by the shabiha, they added.

297 unarmed military observers are in Syria to verify the implementation of the peace plan negotiated by the UN and Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, including a ceasefire that supposedly came into force in mid-April.

On Thursday, Annan will urge the UN Security Council to create a new contact group to help end the violence, diplomats say. It will include permanent members of the council, and key regional powers.

But the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has already said it is unthinkable to involve in the process a country like Iran, which - she said - was state managing the Syrian government's assault on its own people.