(CBS/AP) The United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan was expected in Syria on Monday, just days after a gruesome weekend massacre that killed more than 100 people, and as activists reported a fresh bombardment in the central city of Hama.
Syrian troops shelled several neighborhoods in Hama until the early hours of Monday, killing at least 24 people, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees activist group said. Amateur videos showed a makeshift hospital where several people lay on the floor either dead or wounded. Further details were not immediately clear.
The mass killings Friday in the west-central area of Houla — punctuated by amateur videos showing rows of bloody children killed in the attack — prompted sweeping international criticism of the regime of President Bashar Assad, although differences emerged from world powers over whether his forces were exclusively to blame. (Click the player at left for a full report)The head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria said he would emphasize "the suffering of the Syrian people" during Annan's visit.
"Today, I look very much forward to Annan's visit, I look forward to be able to covey my impressions of the Syrian people," Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the unarmed U.N. observer mission, said in Damascus. "Also to share with him that the suffering of the Syrian people is something that they don't deserve."
Syria gov't denies fault in childrens' deaths
U.N. observer head: 32 children killed in Syria
Complete coverage: The Arab Spring
The newly reported violence comes at a time of deep concern over the conflict in Syria. The Houla massacre was one of the deadliest single days of the country's uprising, which is in its 15th month.
Syria has strongly denied allegations that its forces carried out the killings, suggesting instead that sate forces were attacked at their bases by armed "terrorists," who were also to blame for the massacre in Houla.
The U.N. Security Council after an emergency session Sunday condemned government forces for shelling residential areas, but stopped short of explicitly blaming Assad's regime for the deaths in the house-to-house raids.
Russia, which has blocked all attempts by the U.S. and its other allies at the U.N. to take harsher action against Assad, made it clear on Monday that Moscow's position had changed little in the wake of the Houla massacre.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said both sides in the Syrian conflict "had a hand" in the deaths in Houla.
Lavrov said "the area is controlled by the militants, but is also surrounded by government troops."
He spoke Monday following talks with visiting British Foreign
Secretary William Hague in Moscow, whose remarks also suggested little new common ground between the U.K. - which along with the U.S. has called for Assad to step down immediately - and Moscow.
Hague and Lavrov both stressed Annan's six-point ceasefire plan as the only workable solution to the crisis in Syria. However, the incongruous messages coming from Moscow and the other U.N. Security Council member states suggest the international community will be able to do little to force Assad's regime, or the rebel forces, to adhere to the agreement.
