VOA标准英语2012--Syrian Activists: Women, Children Massacred in Homs

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Activists say the bodies of at least 45 women and children have been discovered in the central city that has been a flashpoint for an anti-government uprising and retaliatory³ attacks and shelling by Syrian forces.

Showing gruesome videos of bodies in three locations, the opposition⁴ accuses pro-government militiamen known as “shabiha” for the killings⁶. 

Syrian officials confirm the deaths, but the state news agency SANA blamed "terrorist armed groups" for kidnapping, killing⁵ and mutilating civilians⁸ in order to show their bodies to media outlets⁹.

Syrian state TV interviewed a handful of people who gave conflicting accounts of what happened.

The discovery of the corpses¹⁰ in Homs comes days after United Nations humanitarian¹¹ coordinator¹² Valerie Amos visited the devastated¹³ Baba Amr neighborhood, and after U.N.-Arab League envoy¹⁴ Kofi Annan's weekend meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami of the Hoover Institution blames the deaths in Homs on the Syrian government.

"What's so surprising? It was known that [Bashar] wanted to break Homs, he wanted to break Baba Amr, he wanted to make an example of them," said Ajami.

Ajami said Annan's mission to negotiate with the Syrian government is “diplomatic theater” and gives Assad's forces “more time to crush the rebellion.”

“Any time a regime with big guns and big weapons and completely unmoored from international morality faces a civilian⁷ population, the regime will win, barring foreign intervention¹⁵. So, the question is: Will there be a massacre² large enough and decisive enough and brutal¹⁶ enough that awakens¹⁷ the powers of the world?” asks Ajami.

In northern Syria, witnesses described a multi-pronged government offensive against opposition strongholds in various parts of Idlib province near the border with Turkey. 

The continued attacks come as the U.N. Security Council, meeting in New York, debated the Syrian government's crackdown. 

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