Satellite images show Assad's heavy weapons still in Syrian cities: Annan's ... - Al-Arabiya

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

By Al Arabiya With Agencies

Satellite images showed that the Syrian army has not withdrawn all heavy weapons from cities, Kofi Annan's spokesman said on Tuesday, as violence killed scores of people nationwide despite the existence of U.N. monitors.

The spokesman said Annan has reports that Syrian security forces "perhaps killed" people who had met with U.N. monitors, and that the international envoy will tell the Security Council that there is a need for "stronger presence" of monitors in Syria, Reuteres reported.

State media and opposition groups reported that three Syrian military officers were killed in Damascus on Tuesday and at least three people were wounded in a car bomb blast in the capital in further blows to a ragged U.N.-monitored ceasefire.

Observers from the fledgling United Nations mission visited the central province of Homs, hotbed of a 13-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, as part of efforts to silence the guns 12 days after the accord was struck.

The opposition Local Coordination Committees reported that regime forces stationed at the eastern checkpoint of the city of Kafar Laha, near Homs, launched heavy gunfire at agricultural areas around the city.

The group also reported that "powerful explosions shook the Sultania and Jobar areas of Homs amid regime forces' heavy gunfire from automatic weapons. The forces are stationed at the checkpoints in Baba Amr."

Head of the Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghalyoun, has warned that "If violence continues, perhaps we will need to use force to protect civilians."

The official SANA news agency reported that an "armed terrorist group" shot dead two army officers near Damascus, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a third was killed in the capital's Barzeh neighborhood.

Damascus residents described the explosion in a pickup truck directly outside an Iranian cultural center, in a popular shopping district, as extremely loud but causing limited damage.

Windows in nearby shops were not shattered and there were no signs of damage to the center, run by Assad's powerful regional ally, Tehran. Shopkeepers said four people were injured, including a taxi driver.

The United Nations says security forces have killed at least 9,000 people in the conflict, while Damascus says 2,600 of its personnel have died at the hands of insurgents who have seized control of pockets of towns and cities across the country of 23 million and who continue to launch daily guerrilla attacks.

A small group of unarmed U.N. observers has been in Syria for just over a week tracking the stuttering progress of the April 12 truce engineered by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Under its terms, both sides are supposed to adhere to a ceasefire while the army withdraws tanks and heavy weapons from population centers - requirements that the U.N. and France have made clear are not being heeded.

France said it still supported Annan's peace plan but could not do so forever without changes on the ground, most notably in the deployment of pro-Assad forces.

"The regime must not get it wrong this time," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said. "It cannot continue to mislead the international community for much longer. When the time comes, we will have to take the necessary measures required if the situation on the ground continues."

For all the rhetoric, France and other Western powers have few tools at their disposal to get at Assad, who succeeded his long-ruling father Hafez in 2000 and who has brushed aside all calls to hand over power.

Military intervention similar to the air campaign in Colonel Qaddafi's Libya could draw in powerful Assad allies such as Iran and Hezbollah militants, and Russia and China are opposed to the U.N. sanctions that Washington and Europe are calling for.

The U.N. observer mission is meant to grow to 300 unarmed personnel although the modest presence already on the ground has led to some decline in the daily death toll, activists say.

However, they accuse Assad's army of simply parking tanks out of sight on farms on the outskirts of towns and cities and resuming operations the moment the monitors' backs are turned.