After the savage attacks on women and children in Houla, Syria there has been an international outcry condemning the actions of the Syrian government.

The White House said it was horrified by the credible reports of brutal attacks  in Houla, Syria, calling the acts further evidence of an inhuman and illegitimate Syrian government.

"These acts serve as a vile testament to an illegitimate regime that responds to peaceful political protest with unspeakable and inhuman brutality," a White House spokesman said.

A Russian diplomat too issued a statement  condemning the attacks  on Twitter. "The tragic events in Syria and the deaths of tens of people deserve condemnation. However it is necessary to seriously examine the causes of what happened," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.

The Shi'ite guerrilla group Hezbollah, President Bashar al-Assad's main Lebanese ally, said on Sunday it deplored the Houla massacre in neighbouring Syria.

Without assigning a blame for the killings of at least 109 civilians in Houla in central Syria, a statement by Hezbollah said it "strongly condemns the massacre and deplores those who carried it out".

The Shi'ite guerrilla group, which the Syrian opposition accuses of backing Assad's military crackdown on the-14 month uprising, along with its patron Iran, is seeking the release of a group of Lebanese Shi'ites kidnapped last week by an armed Sunni Muslim group in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo.