The U.N.'s top human rights body harshly condemned Syria on Friday for the massacre last week of more than 100 civilians, apparently at the hands of government troops and pro-regime thugs.

A majority of countries in the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council backed a U.S. and Arab-led resolution condemning "in the strongest possible terms such an outrageous use of force against the civilian population" in a cluster of villages known as Houla.

According to preliminary U.N. investigations, at least 49 children under the age of 10 were among the dead _ with entire families apparently executed in their homes.

The resolution instructs an expert panel to conduct an "international, transparent, independent and prompt investigation" and echoes calls by U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay for the U.N. Security Council to consider referring Syria to the International Criminal Court.

The vote marks the strongest condemnation yet of Syria by the Geneva-based rights body, highlighting the increasing isolation of Damascus in the international community.

Only Russia, China and Cuba voted against the resolution, with Uganda and Ecuador abstaining. The Philippines was absent during the vote.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said earlier Friday that his country wants to help U.N. envoy Kofi Annan achieve "positive results" and prevent an all-out civil war in Syria.

Nearly 300 U.N. observers have been deployed around Syria to monitor the Annan-brokered cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect on April 12, but the peace plan has unraveled amid daily violence and the images from the Houla massacre have caused outrage to spike.

On his first trip abroad since returning to the presidency, Putin told reporters in Germany that Russia would remain in contact with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his administration.

Putin said he believed a political solution in Syria was possible. "It requires a certain professionalism and patience," he said.

As he spoke in Berlin, Russian diplomats in Geneva dismissed the resolution as "unbalanced" and voted against the text.

It is the fifth time that the Human Rights Council has called an urgent meeting on Syria.

The country's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Fayssal al-Hamwi, accused backers of the resolution of trying to divide his country. His deputy Tamim Madani later warned council members that "voting for this resolution is tantamount to killing the victims (of Houla) again."

Syria has accused "armed terrorists" of carrying out the killings and claims the resolution prejudges the outcome of any investigation.

U.S. and European diplomats say the expert panel could hand its findings to the Security Council _ the only body that can refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

"We believe our role at the Human Rights Council is to provide the basis for a case that would be brought on crimes against humanity," U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe told reporters in Geneva. "This would provide a basis for the Security Council to refer the matter to the ICC."

If the Security Council does take up the question of whether to refer Syria or individual members of the regime to the Hague-based tribunal, Russia and China would be in a position to use their veto. They have done so previously to block U.N. action against Syria.

Rights groups stressed the importance of commissioning an independent investigation into the Houla killings, identifying the perpetrators and holding them to account.

"There is no magic bullet to solve this crisis but Russia bears specific responsibility for making the Syrian government stop the violations now," said Juliette de Rivero, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch.

Peter Splinter, a spokesman for Amnesty International, said growing global condemnation of the Assad regime could force Russia to rethink its position. "At some point defense of uncivilized behavior by a nation that wants to be seen as civilized can no longer be maintained," he said.

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Moulson contributed from Berlin. John Heilprin in Geneva, David Rising in Berlin, and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.