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Annan warns, urges Assad to act 'now'

West withdraws envoys as pressure mounts on regime over 'massacre'

Reuters, Beirut
Peace envoy Kofi Annan expressed "grave concern" to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad yesterday and Western nations threw out its envoys to protest against a massacre of 108 civilians, many of them children, in the town of Houla. "I appealed to him for bold steps now — not tomorrow, now— to create to create momentum for the implementation of the plan," Annan told reporters after the meeting in Damascus.
France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia said they were expelling the Syrian envoys from their capitals in a move that was coordinated with the United States and underlined Assad's diplomatic isolation.
The killings in Houla drew a chorus of powerful condemnation from around the world, with the United Nations saying entire families had been shot dead in their homes.
"Bashar al-Assad is the murderer of his people," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Le Monde. "He must relinquish power. The sooner the better." His Australian counterpart Bob Carr said: "This massacre of more than 100 men, women and children in Houla was a hideous and brutal crime."
Assad's government late on Monday denied having anything to do with the deaths, or even havingheavy weapons in the area.
And at least 19 people were killed yesterday as fierce fighting was reported across Syria, said sources.
Western countries that have called for Assad to step down were hoping that the Houla killings would tip global opinion, notably that of Syria’s main protector Russia, towards more effective action against Damascus.
Annan drew up a peace plan backed by the United Nations and the Arab League to steer a way out of the 14-month-old uprising against Assad. But six weeks after it was agreed by Damascus and the rebels, the bloodshed has barely slowed.
Annan told Assad of the" grave concern of the international community about the violence in Syria, including in particular the recent events in Houla", his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi
said in a statement after two hours of talks in Damascus.
Germany Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged the UN Security Council to revisit the situation in Syria.
The UN human rights office in Geneva said fewer than 20 of the 108 dead in Houla were killed by artillery and tank fire -weaponry that lightly-armed rebels do not have in their arsenal.
Survivors told UN investigators that most of the others had been shot by pro-Assad shabbiha militia, who in the past have intimidated and assaulted hotbeds of opposition to Assad.
"Almost half of the ones we know of so far are children - that is totally unpardonable," said UN spokesman Rupert Colville.
The report contradicted an open letter sent by Syria to the UN Security Council on Monday saying: "Not a single tank entered the region and the Syrian army was in a state of self-defence.”
And Russia, which with China has twice vetoed UN Security Council resolutions on Syria but on Sunday backed a non-binding Council text criticising the use of artillery and tanks in Houla, insists that rebels share the blame for the massacre.
Russia long saw Assad's late father as the best defender of its interests in the region, and leases a major naval base in Syria. It has suggested that foreign countries are undermin-ingAnnan's plan by supporting the opposition.
"We are alarmed that some countries... are starting to use this event as an excuse to put forth demands of the need for military action in an attempt to put pressure on the UN Security Council," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.