A first, initial report released by the Syrian judicial committee set up to investigate the massacre of al-Hula confirmed findings of UN monitors at the scene, that the majority of victims had been executed at close range, not by military action. In a press conference at the Foreign Ministry Brigadier General Qassem Jamal Suleiman said Syrian armed forces and police had not entered the area where the massacre occurred, but had killed a number of armed insurgents in a military crackdown, whose bodies were exposed to show the evidence. As to what happened inside the area controlled by armed extremists, Jamal Suleimen accused terrorist groups of the killings of civilians hailing from families who had refused to participate in the armed assault on five army and police outposts as well as government structures.