Talk Elections

A weekend massacre of more than 100 people emerged as a potential turning point in the Syrian crisis Monday, galvanizing even staunch ally Russia to take an unusually hard line against President Bashar Assad's government.

Analysts said Russia may be warning Assad that he needs to change course or lose Moscow's support, which has been a key layer of protection for the Syrian government during the uprising that began in March 2011.

Russia has grown increasingly critical of Damascus in recent months, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's latest comments were unusually strong. Although he said opposition forces have terrorists among them, he put the blame for 15 months of carnage primarily on Assad's government.

"The government bears the main responsibility for what is going on," Lavrov said in Moscow following a meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "Any government in any country bears responsibility for the security of its citizens."

Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Lavrov's comments suggest Russia may be backing away from its long-standing support for Damascus.

"Bashar Assad is driving himself and Russia into a corner," Malashenko said. "Bashar has definitely gotten the sense that he may lose Russia's sympathy, and he may step back a bit."

It is not clear whether Assad's forces were exclusively to blame for the slaughter of 108 people Friday in Houla, a collection of poor farming villages in Homs province. The United Nations said 49 children and 34 women were among the dead; some had bullet holes through their heads.

The U.N. Security Council blamed Syrian forces for artillery and tank shelling of residential areas, but it did not clearly state who was responsible for the close-range shooting deaths and "severe physical abuse" of civilians.

Activists from the area said the army pounded the villages with artillery and clashed with local rebels. They said pro-government gunmen later stormed the area, doing the bulk of the killing by gunning down men in the streets and stabbing women and children in their homes.

Although Syria produces relatively modest quantities of oil and gas, its location is strategic in terms of regional security and prospective energy transit routes. Regional integration in the energy sector is expected to increase as a result of the 2008 opening of the Syrian link of the Arab Gas Pipeline and ongoing plans for the expansion of the pipeline network to include neighboring countries Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.