US expels Syria diplomat after UN finds Houla victims were 'executed' The United States and other nations expelled Syrian Charge d'Affaires Zuheir Jabbour. After 14 months of violence, the country is approaching an all-out civil war. By msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson and NBC News' Catherine Chomiak Updated at 1:05 p.m. ET: The United States and a string of other nations expelled Syrian diplomats Tuesday, in response to a United Nations announcement that most of the 108 victims of violence near the Syrian town of Houla had been executed. The State Department said it had decided to expel Charge d'Affaires Zuheir Jabbour from the U.S., an action mirrored by Australia, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany. The Syrian ambassador had previously been recalled, leaving the charge d'affaires the highest ranking official in Washington, D.C. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier said its monitors found that fewer than 20 of the victims died from artillery fire. Syrian authorities had blamed "terrorists" for the massacre, which is one of the worst carnages in the 14-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that has cost about 10,000 lives. The United States rejected Syria's claims that terrorists were responsible for the massacre. "We hold the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives," a spokesman for State Department told NBC News in a statement. We encourage all countries to condemn the actions of the Assad regime through similar action. The U.S. did not cut off relations with Syria altogether, and did not oppose "many civil service members of the Syrian government who are working to improve their country," the statement added. "Our view is that these are civil servants; these are technical staff; these are the same people who, if and when -- and there will come a when -- the Assad regime goes and we're into a transition that they will have to restart the relationship," Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the State Department, said. We are not opposed to the low- and mid-level technical staff remaining. 'Summarily executed' Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UNHCR, told journalists in Geneva that initial investigations suggest fewer than 20 of the victims in the village of Taldou, near Houla, were killed by artillery or tank fire. The findings came as UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was meeting Assad in Damascus on Tuesday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that those who carried out the killings be held accountable.