Mass burial of more than 300 Syrians reported

AMMAN -- Dozens of bloodied bodies were buried Sunday in mass graves in a Damascus suburb, where activists claim more than 300 people have been killed over the past week in a major government offensive to take back control of rebel-held areas in and around the capital.

The British-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 32 more bodies were found Sunday in the streets of Daraya and that they had been killed by "gunfire and summary executions." Among them were three women and two children, the group said. It said the toll for the past week was at least 320.

Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, claimed 300 bodies were discovered Saturday in Daraya and 633 people had been killed there since the government began its assault last week.

President Bashar Assad, in comments carried by state media, reiterated his long-standing claim that a foreign plot was behind the uprising against his rule and said he would not allow it to succeed, "whatever the price might be."

Britain's minister for Middle East affairs, Alistair Burt, meanwhile, said that, if confirmed, the massacre "would be an atrocity on a new scale requiring unequivocal condemnation from the entire international community."

He said it "highlights the urgent need for international action to bring an end to the violence, end this culture of impunity and hold to account those responsible for these terrible acts."

Burt said he had discussed the killings with UN and Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.

It was impossible to verify the death tolls independently because of severe restrictions on media coverage of the conflict. Activists and residents have reported excessive use of force by the regime in major battles, with indiscriminate shelling from the ground and the air.

The Local Coordination Committees said some of those killed in Daraya were buried in mass graves. Video footage posted by the group showed bodies wrapped in colorful blankets lying aside each other with branches of date palms strewn over them.

The authenticity of the two videos could not be independently confirmed.

The Local Coordination Committees said an additional 1,755 people had been detained in Daraya, suggesting that hundreds more might turn up dead.