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Russia doubts Syria government behind Houla massacre

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations cast doubt Sunday on the culpability of Syria’s government for a massacre of more than 100 people in the central town of Houla.

“We need to establish whether it was the Syrian authorities,” Igor Pankin told reporters at the United Nations.

“There are substantial grounds to believe that the majority of those who were killed were either slashed, cut by knives, or executed at point blank distance.”

Major General Robert Mood, the head of the UN observer mission in Syria, told a meeting of the UN Security Council that the deaths were from “shrapnel” and gunfire at “point-blank” range, diplomats said.

Britain and France had proposed a Council statement condemning the massacre in Houla. But Russia had been awaiting a briefing from Mood before agreeing to any condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus.

Syrian authorities have denied their forces carried out the killings, which have sparked an international outcry, with a spokesman blaming “terrorists” and saying a government investigation had been opened into the carnage.