UN team 'shot at' trying to reach Syria 'massacre site'

Hillary Clinton said she was willing to work with Syria's ally, Russia, to help bring about a transfer of power

The head of the UN has said monitors trying to reach the Syrian village of Qubair, where 78 people are said to have been killed, were fired upon.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Ban Ki-moon condemned the reported massacre as "shocking and sickening", and an "unspeakable barbarity".
UN monitors said earlier that Syrian troops had blocked access to Qubair.
Monitors were continuing efforts to reach the village near Hama, UN mission chief Gen Robert Mood said.
At one point, a Syrian state TV report said monitors had entered the village, but the report could not be confirmed.
Clandestine activists have blamed the killings at Qubair on pro-government forces but the government, which quotes a much smaller death toll, says civilians there were killed by "terrorists".
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the violence was "unconscionable".
The UN has 297 unarmed observers in Syria to verify the implementation of a peace plan negotiated by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, which includes a ceasefire that supposedly came into force in mid-April.
Taking the microphone after Mr Ban, Mr Annan addressed the UN on the progress of his peace mission.
'Brutality and duplicity' Gen Robert Mood, the commander of the UN mission, said civilians were also stopping UN patrols in the Hama area.

There is a sense in Damascus shared by many diplomats, international officials and those opposed to President Assad that his regime may no longer have complete and direct day-to-day command and control of some of the militia groups being blamed for massacring civilians.
The world has looked at the Syrian conflict in very black and white terms over the past 15 months. It now needs to acknowledge the shades of grey that are emerging.
UN observers are hoping to soon investigate the latest reports of killings. Kofi Annan will be updating the UN today on his mission and on the massacre in Houla.
What is acknowledged is that, while the UN observer mission has been a success in terms of meeting its brief, the six-point plan has been a failure. And it's clear the Syrian conflict has stopped looking like past Arab revolutions and is instead beginning to look much more like Bosnia when it began the slow slide into sectarian civil war.

"We are receiving information from residents of the area that the safety of our observers is at risk if we enter [the] village," he said.

"Despite these challenges, the observers are still working to get into the village to try to establish the facts on the ground."
Mrs Clinton called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down, accusing the Syrian state of sponsoring Wednesday's violence in Hama.
"Assad has doubled down on his brutality and duplicity and Syria will not, cannot be peaceful, stable or certainly democratic until Assad goes," she said on a visit to Istanbul, Turkey.
Mrs Clinton said she was willing to work with China and Russia to secure peace, but those countries have already indicated they will not support any attempt at regime change or military intervention.
Videos The latest violence comes less than two weeks after 108 people were killed in a massacre in Houla.
Harrowing videos of dead children have been circulating on the internet purporting to show victims of the Qubair attack.
According to activists, security forces bombarded Qubair, a village of fewer than 30 houses about 20km (12 miles) north-west of Hama, late on Wednesday.
Much of the killing was done by accompanying groups of pro-government militiamen known as shabiha, who had come from nearby pro-government villages, the activists said.
Militiamen allegedly shot at close range and stabbed many people, and some bodies were reportedly later set alight along with houses.
One activist in Hama told the BBC's World Tonight that a small number of villagers had managed to flee.

One Qubair resident told the BBC that after the army and militia had left the village, he discovered about 40 bodies, mostly women and children, stabbed to death.
Among the victims were four members of his family, the man said. He added that he saw the burned corpse of a three-month-old baby.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, said 78 people had died in Qubair, including 35 members of one family.
The LCC said the Qubair killings had brought the total number of people killed nationwide by security forces on Wednesday to 140.
But Syrian officials said reports of a massacre were "completely false".
State TV reported that security forces had launched an attack on an "armed terrorist stronghold" in Qubair after appeals from citizens.

The BBC's Tom Esselmont: "The activists are comparing the killings to those in Houla"

It said a UN observer team had entered Qubair and had "witnessed a crime by the terrorists, who killed nine women and children".
Members of the international community in Damascus say that most victims at Houla were killed by gunfire raking rooms and not in execution-style killings, contrary to initial reports.
Also, people's throats were not cut at Houla, although one person did have an eye gouged out, the sources now say.

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