http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/syria-ban-ki-moon-violence
Syria condemned by Ban Ki-moon over fresh violence
United Nations secretary general joined by US ambassador to Damascus in decrying ongoing attacks on opposition
Damaged buildings in Taftanaz after violence between Syrian government troops and rebels. Photograph: Reuters
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has condemned the Syrian government for fresh military assaults despite agreeing to a deal to withdraw from rebel areas of the country.
Ban said the ceasefire deadline, which calls for President Bashar al-Assad's forces to pull out of towns and cities by 10 April to allow humanitarian aid to reach Syrians, was "not an excuse for continued killing".
"He deplores the assault by the Syrian authorities against innocent civilians, including women and children, despite the commitments by the government of Syria to cease all use of heavy weapons in population centres," said a statement from his office.
Ban's comments came as the US amabassador to Syria said Assad's forces appeared to have pulled back from some towns and cities ahead of the ceasefire, but in other areas has kept troops and armoured vehicles in place or shifted them around.
Robert Ford said he was basing his information on satellite images before and after the alleged pullouts, which were posted on the US embassy Facebook page. But while some troops were redeployed, others were kept near rebel-occupied towns, while arrests, sweeps, and the artillery bombardment of opposition strongholds continued, Ford's statement said.
"This is not the reduction in offensive Syrian government security operations that all agree must be the first step for the Annan initiative to succeed," he said in a statement.
Few analysts are hopeful that the plan, brokered by Ban's predecessor Kofi Annan, now the UN-Arab League envoy, can work, even though it has the support of Russia and China, who have vetoed previous UN resolutions aimed at ending the bloodshed, which has claimed the lives of around 10,000 Syrians since March 2011.
Opposition activists say at least 100 people have been killed over the past two days as troops intensified operations. Activists reported tank fire in at least three urban centres – the town of Douma near Damascus; the city of Homs; and Rastan, north of Homs. Damascus residents claimed via Twitter that security forces had opened fire on a demonstration in the central Midan area, one of dozens of Friday protests being held in the capital and around the country.
According to the satellite images, Ford said there were some areas such as Dael in the southern province of Deraa, and Taftanaz in the northern Idlib province, where some forces were withdrawn following several days of assaults against the towns. In Taftanaz, the Syrian government simply moved some armoured vehicles out and into the nearby town of Zirdana.
"In some other places, such as Homs and Zabadani, the Syrian government kept artillery units near residential areas where they could again fire upon them," Ford said. The central city of Homs has been a focal point of the uprising and Zabadani is a rebel stronghold west of Damascus on the Syrian border.
Ford urged Assad to allow a UN monitoring force to have full access throughout Syria to investigate the regime's compliance. "The regime and the Syrian people should know that we are watching. The regime cannot hide the truth," he said.
A small UN team headed by a Norwegian major general, Robert Mood, met with Syria's deputy foreign minister on Friday to discuss the ceasefire. Mood is to set up a UN monitoring force with 200 to 250 members if the peace plan succeeds.
Meanwhile Turkey has urged the UN to send officials to its border after several thousand refugees crossed from Syria to escape a bloody government attack with troops and helicopters.
Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, called the UN secretary general at 2am on Friday to discuss the unprecedented exodus and humanitarian situation. More than 2,800 Syrians poured into Turkey on Thursday, more than double the highest previous one-day total. The refugees were fleeing heavy shelling by the Syrian army of villages in the north-western province of Idlib.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/20124793812723787.html
| Syria deaths increase despite UN deadline | |||
Reports say 70 people killed on Saturday, with UN accusing government of using April 10 deadline as excuse for attacks. Last Modified: 07 Apr 2012 10:50 | |||
| At least 70 people have been killed in shelling and firefights between government troops and army defectors in Syria, according to reports. The deaths on Saturday were reported from the cities of Homs, Hama and Aleppo by Syrian opposition groups and Al Jazeera sources. The Local Co-ordination Committees activist network said on Saturday that at least 24 people were killed in the village of al-Latamneh in the suburbs of the city of Hama. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the al-Latamneh death toll at 27. The group said most of those people were killed by shells fired as troops tried to storm al-Latamneh after clashes with defectors there over the past two days. Farther to the south, at Qusayr in central Homs province, three civilians were killed, including a woman, a child and a defector from the police, said the UK-based activist group. At least 77 people were killed across Syria on Thursday and 35 on Friday, most of them civilians, according to figures by the Syrian Observatory. UN criticism Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, on Friday sharply criticised the Syrian government for its latest attacks on civilians, saying that increased attacks by government forces on Syrian cities "violate" the UN Security Council's demand for an end to hostilities. The UN press office said in a statement that the secretary general believes that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is using an April 10 deadline to pull troops and heavy weapons away from cities as "an excuse" to step up killing.
The UN statement continued: "He deplores the assault by the Syrian authorities against innocent civilians, including women and children, despite the commitments by the government of Syria to cease all use of heavy weapons in population centers. "The 10 April timeline to fulfill the government's implementation of its [ceasefire and troop withdrawal] commitments, as endorsed by the Security Council, is not an excuse for continued killing. "Such actions violate the consensus position of the Security Council" which backed the peace plan drawn up by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan and the April 10 deadline he agreed with Assad.
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