Syrian bombardment of Hama kills 41

The Syrian army's bombardment of the city of Hama has killed at least 41 people in the past 24 hours, an opposition group in the city said on Monday.

Syrian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles opened fire on several neighbourhoods of Hama on Sunday after a series of attacks by rebel Free Syrian Army fighters on roadblocks and other positions manned by President Bashar al-Assad's forces, opposition sources said.

The dead included five women and eight children, the Hama Revolution leadership Council said in a statement.

The report could not be independently verified.

The claim comes after the The UN Security Council on Sunday unanimously condemned the killing of at least 108 people, including many children, in the Syrian town of Houla, a sign of mounting outrage at the massacre that the government and rebels blamed on each other.

Images of bloodied and lifeless young bodies, laid carefully side by side after the onslaught on Friday, triggered shock around the world and underlined the failure of a six-week-old UN ceasefire plan to stop the violence.

Western and Arab states opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put the blame for the deaths squarely on the government. But Damascus rejected the charge.

"The Security Council condemned in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of (Houla), near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighbourhood," the non-binding statement said.

"Such outrageous use of force against civilian population constitutes a violation of applicable international law and of the commitments of the Syrian Government under United Nations Security Council Resolutions," the statement said.

The United Nations believes that at least 108 people were killed in Houla, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said.