Russia, which along with China has been a chief supporter of Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Asad during the year-long rebellion that has left more than 10,000 Syrians dead, issued a rare rebuke of the Syrian regime on Monday when Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, “The [Al-Asad] government bears the main responsibility for what is going on.” Lavrov spoke to reporters following a meeting with visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague. More than 100 civilians, many of them children, were killed in heavy artillery shelling of the town of Houla on Friday raising outrage around the world. The actual series of events remains sketchy, with questions remaining over who actually killed the victims who died from execution-style gunshot wounds rather than from injuries consistent with artillery barrages. Al-Asad’s loss of Russian and Chinese support in the UN Security Council will leave him vulnerable to binding resolutions that have so far been blocked by his two supporters.