Syrian soldiers stormed a town east of Damascus on Sunday and rebels bombed a military convoy in the north of the country as international mediator Kofi Annan urged both sides to work with an expanded team of U.N. ceasefire monitors.
The group of unarmed military monitors has been operating in Syria for a week, overseeing a 10-day-old truce agreement that has curbed some of the violence but failed to bring a complete halt to 13 months of bloodshed.
The U.N. Security Council agreed on Saturday to expand the mission to a 300-strong observer team, part of Annan’s plan to halt the killing and launch a political dialogue between President Bashar al-Assad and opponents seeking his downfall.
Annan said the council’s decision was a “pivotal moment in the stabilisation of the country” after more than a year of turmoil in which more than 9,000 people have been killed.
The former U.N. secretary-general called on both Syrian government forces and opposition fighters to put down their weapons and consolidate the ceasefire accord. “The government in particular must desist from the use of heavy weapons and, as it has committed, withdraw such weapons and armed units from population centres,” Annan said.
Assad’s opponents say his forces have continued shelling opposition strongholds in violation of the truce, while authorities say “terrorist armed groups” have kept up a campaign of bombings against government targets.
Opposition activists said security forces killed at least six people on Sunday. Soldiers backed by tanks charged into the town of Douma, east of Damascus, while security forces opened fire in the northern province of Idlib, they said.
Internet video footage which activists said was filmed in Douma on Sunday showed grey smoke rising from buildings and the sound of heavy gunfire in the background. One clip showed soldiers in helmets and bullet-proof vests next to a tank. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least four soldiers were killed when a bomb hit an armoured personnel carrier outside Douma.
The official news agency SANA made no mention of fighting in Douma but said that at least one officer was killed by a bomb which struck a convoy of army officers and cadets in the northern province of Aleppo. Another bomb targeted a freight train transporting flour in Idlib province, it said.
OBSERVER MISSION: U.N. observers toured the central city of Homs on Saturday, bringing a degree of calm to the rebel stronghold which has endured weeks of shelling by the army. Two observers stayed overnight in the city, a U.N. spokesman said.
Activists in Hama, north of Homs, said they expected the monitors to visit their city on Sunday. Hama, where Assad’s father crushed an armed Islamist uprising 30 years ago, killing many thousands of people, has been quieter since the ceasefire came into effect, according to a local activist who identified himself as Musab.
“We don’t see the tanks any more, they just hide them in government installations,” he said. “But the troops are still around. The truce has an effect but not to the extent that we can demonstrate freely.” Western and Arab ministers meeting in Paris last week described the observer mission as a “last chance” for peace in Syria. The United States said that if Damascus did not permit an adequate monitoring process, the Security Council should work towards imposing sanctions on Syria. On Saturday the Security Council unanimously adopted a Russian- and European-drafted resolution authorising an initial deployment of up to 300 unarmed military observers to Syria for three months, a mission to be known as UNSMIS.
