Ceasefire Hangs by a Thread: Tank-Backed Troops Storm Damascus Suburb

DAMASCUS – Soldiers backed by tanks stormed a rebel bastion near Damascus Sunday, activists said as an advance team of UN ceasefire observers toured Syrian hot spots, laying the ground for an expanded mission.

UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan demanded that the government of President Bashar al-Assad stop using heavy weapons against its own people "once and for all," in a statement issued in Geneva.

"The Syrian government must once and for all stop using heavy weapons and withdraw them from population centres," Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in the statement.

The latest violence comes only hours after the UN Security Council voted to approve Annan’s plan to send an extra 300 unarmed observers to Syria for three months, although Washington warned it may veto a new mandate for the mission.

Shelling and heavy gunfire were reported as the early morning operation was launched to crush Assad’s opponents in Douma, an outlying suburb of the Syrian capital, the activists reported.

Videos posted online showed towering columns of smoke billowing into the sky, as gunfire and calls of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) can be heard in the background.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two civilians were killed in Douma, while checkpoint guards shot dead a third overnight elsehwere in Damascus province.

In Banias, meanwhile, the monitoring group said an overnight ambush on a patrol killed one security forces member and wounded three others, the first such incident in the northern coastal city for nearly a year.

Two members of the advance team set up base in the restive city of Homs on Sunday, a mission spokesman said, a day after they made their first visit to the central protest hub since being deployed in Syria a week ago.

"Yesterday, the UN advance team visited Homs where they met with the local authorities and all the parties," spokesman Neeraj Singh said.

"The team drove or walked around the city of Homs and stopped at different locations to talk to the people. Following the visit, two UN military observers have now been stationed at Homs since yesterday evening."

On Saturday, their visit to Homs included a stop in Baba Amr, a rebel hideout battered by a month-long army bombardment that killed hundreds, according to monitors, before it was retaken on March 1.

A YouTube video showed them meeting with activists who begged them to stay. Its authenticity could not be verified.

"Today is the first day since two months, exactly since 5 February… in Homs without shelling… without killing, without fire," one unidentified activist said in the footage.

"Because of that, we want you to stay. Please stay. This is what we want. When you come, shelling stops. When you come, killing stops," he told the observers, who wore blue helmets and bullet-proof vests marked "UN".

Only days after being deployed, the head of the advance team, Colonel Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco, acknowledged they faced a tough task to firm up the ceasefire Assad agreed to last week.

A spike in violence had already forced the Arab League to end its own Syrian monitoring mission in late January, barely a month after it was launched.

Under UN Resolution 2043, adopted on Saturday, 300 military observers will be sent to Syria for an initial period of 90 days if UN chief Ban Ki-moon determines it is safe to go.

The UN says well over 9,000 Syrians have been killed since democracy protests erupted in March 2011, inspired by uprisings that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and an armed revolt that ousted Libya’s Moamer Gathafi.

Monitors put the figure at more than 11,000, including at least 200 people killed in sporadic violence which has persisted since the UN-backed ceasefire took effect on April 12.

Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council the resolution on the expanded mission was of "fundamental importance to push forward the process of the peaceful settlement in Syria."

But Washington warned it may prevent the mission’s renewal after three months, while urging greater international pressure on Assad.

US ambassador Susan Rice said Ban must make a "careful judgment" about conditions in Syria before sending the larger contingent of monitors.

"Our patience is exhausted. No one should assume that the United States will agree to renew this mission after 90 days," Rice told the Council.

The opposition Syrian National Council and rebel Free Syrian Army hailed the Security Council vote, saying it responds to the Syrian people’s demands.

"Undoubtedly, the sending of new monitors is a demand of the Syrian people and of the revolutionaries who protest every day," spokesman George Sabra said.

The rebel army said it remained "committed to the ceasefire" but spokesman Colonel Kassem Saadeddine accused government forces of failing to respect the truce. "There are daily bombardments… and tanks are still on the streets" in violation of the peace plan, he said.

Source: Middle East Online