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US expels top Syrian diplomat from Washington

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    Washington protests massacre of civilians

  • Duration 3:03
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The decision to kick out Syria's senior envoy follows a horrifying massacre of civilians in one town.

More than a hundred people women and children and the entire family's shot in their homes execution style.

Governments around the world also expelling Syrian diplomats in response to the slaughter but has the White House done enough James Rosen on that story from Washington today.

John and -- and good morning we're tracking these developments -- they're going on down on the ground in Syria and things are just going from bad to worse there.

Here in Washington.

The top -- Syrian diplomat has 72 hours to leave the country.

He is the show RJ -- which usually means in an embassy that he's the number two official for that country.

The Syrian ambassador or was that the mob was -- he has been out of this country for some time we'll call to Damascus.

-- now the United States has kicked out the number two man at the Syrian embassy.

Of course we -- essentially closed our embassy in Damascus in February and withdrew our ambassador Robert Ford.

A due to the worsening conditions in the country.

Meantime the united nations human rights office has now concluded about that massacre in the city of -- in Syria.

This past Friday that killed at least 108 people.

Many of them women and children as John just noted they have concluded that this was an execution style attack.

And fewer than twenty of those victims were the victims of government shelling.

Indeed it appears as though the Asad regime may have she multiple location.

After the execution took place to try to make it look as if it was just another incident in war.

In fact it's shaping up as one of the worst massacres in a long series of them.

Since the uprising began in Syria some fifteen months ago John and John.

And is anybody in Washington talking about anything beyond expelling diplomats as a way to respond to this massacre.

Well we're expecting some briefings from the State Department and the White House later this afternoon and will be monitoring those.

But officials here will tell you that they face a real serious shortage of options in Syria this is a country with a 600000 man army.

And moreover there is no clear alternative to the Syrian regime right now.

On which we could potentially -- our hopes the Free Syrian Army which has its headquarters in a series of tense outside Syria near the Turkish border.

Not really an effective army at all.

And not really truly beholden to any kind of civilian leadership.

So it's a very difficult situation for policy makers here.

Want to you can be sure of that it will remain a campaign issue as the campaign heats up in this country Mitt Romney the presumptive GOP nominee.

Set to clinch the nomination later today.

Was very vocal over the weekend and saying that the United States needs to do more.

It's just not clear -- policy makers in the Obama administration exactly what they can do.

To set up a good situation beyond -- all sob and Jon and Jeff just awful if you have slaughter going on.

James Rosen thanks.

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