The opposition Syrian National Council has urged the UN Security Council to act urgently after claiming regime forces "massacred" scores of civilians, including many children, in the town of Houla.
At the same time, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights accused the Arab and international communities on Saturday of being "complicit" in the killings, saying shelling that had begun on Friday had continued overnight.
And the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) again called for world powers to carry out air strikes on the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
The latest killing came as Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria who brokered a repeatedly violated ceasefire last month, finalised plans to return to Damascus.
The Britain-based Observatory said the shelling had killed more than 90 people in Houla, in central Homs province, including 25 children.
Amateur videos posted on YouTube showed horrifying images of children lying dead on a floor. Some of their corpses badly mangled, with at least one child's head partly blown away.
The Observatory accused the international community of standing "silent in the face of the massacres committed by the Syrian regime."
Earlier, SNC spokeswoman Basma Kodmani said "more than 110 people were killed (half of whom are children) by the Syrian regime's forces" in Houla.
"Some of the victims were hit by heavy artillery while others, entire families, were massacred."
Later on Saturday, members of the UN team of military observers in the country arrived in Houla to assess the situation, the state news agency SANA and the Observatory said.
The team arrived in the village of Taldau on the edge of Houla, "to document the crimes committed in the past 24 hours, in violation of the ceasefire," the Observatory said, adding that "explosions and gunfire could be heard" at the time.
A report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said groups fighting Assad now control "significant" parts of some cities and there is "considerable physical destruction" across the country.
"There is a continuing crisis on the ground, characterised by regular violence, deteriorating humanitarian conditions, human rights violations and continued political confrontation," said the report, obtained by AFP on Friday.
The report is to be debated by the Security Council next week.
Annan brokered a six-point peace plan, which included a ceasefire that went into effect on April 12 but has been breeched daily since then.
He is to travel to Syria "soon" as he continues efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. Diplomats in Geneva said the former UN secretary general would visit Damascus early next week.
Meanwhile, the FSA called on the Friends of Syria group of nations to carry out air strikes on regime forces after the Houla incident.
Turkey-based General Mustafa Ahmed al-Sheikh, head of the FSA's military council, urged "an appropriate stance after the heinous crime committed by Assad's assassin regime in the Houla region."
"We are calling urgently on the Friends of Syria to create a military alliance, outside of the UN Security Council, to carry out targeted strikes against Assad's gangs and the symbols of his regime," Sheikh said.
This is not the first time the opposition has called on the Friends of Syria to intervene the 14-month-old conflict.
On April 19, Sheikh urged "the formation of a military alliance of countries friendly to the Syrian people, without UN Security Council approval, to carry out surgical strikes on key installations of the regime."
The United States, France, Britain, Germany, and Arab nations Saudi Arabia and Qatar are leading members of the Friends, which has held several meetings calling for tougher action against the Assad regime.
Describing Assad's regime as "one of the main causes of instability in the region and the world," Sheikh also called on rebel fighters in Syria to carry out "targeted military strikes" against the forces of the regime.
On Friday, at least 23 people were killed in the rest of Syria, according to the Observatory, as huge anti-regime demonstrations erupted around the country following weekly Muslim prayers.
And army tanks rumbled through Aleppo for the first time since the uprising against Assad's regime erupted 14 months ago, Observatory.
The Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP in Beirut the protests in Syria's second city were the biggest there since the uprising started in March 2011.
Damascus and Aleppo, initially spared the deadly violence that has hit Syria since last year, have been drawn into the crisis in recent weeks and have also been the scene of deadly suicide car bombings.
A UN panel said on Thursday that government forces were to blame for most abuses in the violence that has raged on daily despite the ceasefire supposed to take effect April 12.
More than 12,600 people have been killed in Syria in the revolt against Assad's rule, including nearly 1,500 since the UN-backed truce was to come into effect, according to Observatory figures.
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