WarSclerotic

“What a few media have reported on what happened in al-Kubeir, in the Hama region, is completely false,” the government said in a statement on official television.

“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.

Prominent opposition group, the Syrian National Council, told AFP news agency earlier on Wednesday that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad “massacred” about 100 people, including many women and children, at al-Kubeir.

Other sources also reported that a “massacre” had taken place in the same area, including opposition activists and the British-based Observatory, which tentatively put the number of dead at 87.

The deaths follow a two-day massacre that began on May 25 near the central town of Houla, where at least 108 people were killed, while most of them women and children who were summarily executed, according to the United Nations.

Syria’s 15-month revolt against President Assad’s rule has grown increasingly bloody in recent months, raising concerns the country may be slipping towards civil war.

Syrian forces had been shelling Kubeir and the nearby village of Maazarif, which are around 20 km (12 miles) from the central city of Hama.

Both massacres have happened in the presence of United Nations observers, a 300-strong force sent into Syria to observe a ceasefire deal brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan. The truce was hardly observed by the government or the rebels, who last week said they would no longer honor the ceasefire because of recent killings.

Meanwhile, there were additional reports late Wednesday claiming fierce fighting broke out in the outskirts of Syria’s capital, Damascus, and surrounding suburbs, anti-government activists said.

Residents in Damascus city centre said they heard heavy gunfire from the fighting, while activists in nearby suburbs s a id they heard explosions and machinegun fire. In some areas, local activists reported seeing helicopters buzzing overhead.

Heavy gunbattles also erupted in Jobar, a district on the outskirts of Damascus, the Observatory for said.

No casualties were reported by the activists, and such reports are difficult to verify as the government has restricted international media’s access into Syria.

While Assad’s forces have maintained control of the capital and northern business hub Aleppo, fighting has been increasing in and around the cities.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Western and Arab nations at a meeting in Istanbul on Wednesday that a transition strategy in Syria must include President Bashar al-Assad’s full transfer of power, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

“Tonight the secretary laid out a set of essential elements and principles which we believe should guide that post-Assad transition strategy, including Assad’s full transfer of power,” the official told reporters after the meeting.

Clinton also told the meeting that transition in Syria must include a fully representative interim government that would lead to free and fair elections.

Hosted by Turkish President Ahmet Davutoglu, the late night meeting included top officials from the EU, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey.

In a written statement, host country Turkey said the members had agreed to convene a “coordination group” to provide support to the Syrian opposition. Each country had agreed to send a representative to Istanbul on June 15-16 to attend the coordination meeting of all the Syrian opposition groups.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the U.S. official suggested that Clinton was trying to lay down a set of minimum benchmarks for how a transition in Syria could unfold in the hopes Russia might back it despite its past support for Assad.

The official all but acknowledged the failure of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan.

“We have all been hoping, expecting, pressuring Assad to live up to his commitment to meet Kofi Annan’s six points,” the official said.

“In the absence of any significant movement by Assad on any of the tracks and in fact increased violence, it’s time for the international community, working with the Syrian people, to start fleshing out the alternatives to Assad and how this is going to go,” the official added.

Clinton, meanwhile, was cool to the idea of bringing Iran into the discussions.

“It’s a little hard to imagine inviting a country that is stage managing the Assad regime’s assault on its people,” she said, referring to Iran.

France had also announced at the meeting it would hold a full “Friends of Syria” meeting in Paris on July 6, the U.S. official said.