Syria not at fault in Houla massacre, government probe finds BEIRUT - The Syrian government announced Thursday that the results of a preliminary investigation into the massacre of 108 civilians in the village of Houla proved that Syrian government forces were not responsible. The announcement of the findings came as Houla residents reported that they had been targeted by renewed mortar and heavy machine-gun fire from Syrian army positions, and activists claimed that as many as 15 factory workers had been executed at a Syrian army checkpoint. The fresh reports of violence suggested that the recent surge in international condemnation of the Syrian government's behavior in the wake of the Houla killings last Friday has had little impact on the violence. Brigadier Gen. Qassem Jamal Suleiman, head of the committee formed by the Syrian government to investigate the massacre, told a news conference in Damascus that 600 to 800 men belonging to "armed terrorist groups" had carried out the killings in Houla after launching attacks on Syrian forces earlier in the day Friday. He said all the victims belonged to families "who refused to oppose the government and were at odds with the armed groups." Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the massacre had been carried out by people who wanted to trigger international military intervention in Syria. "The Syrian army could not have committed a massacre like this," he said at the news conference. The international community is putting a spotlight on Houla because this is an area where there is a certain sect . . . in order to prove that what is happening in Syria has become a sectarian civil war. Residents of Houla, a collection of Sunni villages outside the city of Homs, claim that the killings were carried out by pro-government militias known as shabiha who came from nearby villages populated by Alawites, the minority Shiite sect to which the ruling Assad family belongs. U.N. monitors who are in the country to observe a very tenuous cease-fire have confirmed the deaths, and say 49 children and 34 women were among the victims. A U.N. statement Sunday blamed the Syrian government for the deaths, signaling the harshest international condemnation yet of the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad since the uprising against his rule began 14 months ago. Activists posted video on YouTube purporting to show evidence of what they said were fresh executions by government forces Thursday. The footage showed the bloodied and abused bodies of about a dozen men, who had been stopped at a Syrian army checkpoint outside the town of Buwayda, also in the troubled province of Homs. The claims could not be independently verified because the Syrian government denies most foreign journalists access to the country.