SALON

Tuesday, Apr 17, 2012 9:15 AM UTC

Activists: Syrian troops widen shelling attacks

By

Topics: From the Wires,

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian regime widened shelling attacks on opposition strongholds Tuesday, activists said, targeting a second town in a new sign that a U.N.-brokered cease-fire is quickly unraveling despite the presence of foreign observers.

The truce is part of an international plan to launch talks between President Bashar Assad’s regime and those trying to topple him. An uprising against Assad erupted 13 months ago, but became increasingly violent in response to a regime crackdown.

Regime compliance with the cease-fire has been partial, and the latest escalation further lowered expectations that the key element of special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan can stick.

Annan, joint emissary for the U.N. and the Arab League, was to travel to Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday to brief the Arab League on the situation in Syria.

Diplomats and finance ministry officials from the Arab world, the West and elsewhere also were meeting Tuesday in Paris to coordinate sanctions against the Assad regime. Diplomats say a string of EU, U.S. and other sanctions are affecting Assad by curbing Syria’s ability to export oil and the ability of his cronies to do business abroad.

A six-member advance team of U.N. observers arrived in Damascus over the weekend, but hasn’t traveled to hotspots yet. U.N. officials said the team is still devising a plan on where to go and whom to meet. A previous Arab League observer mission was hampered by regime restrictions on movement, and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has demanded his monitors be given free access.

In Damascus, the head of the observer team, Col. Ahmed Himmiche, suggested Tuesday it would take time to get to the hardest hit areas.

“There should be coordination and planning and we should move … step by step,” he said. “It’s not an easy process.”

The group is to be reinforced by an additional 25 monitors who are expected to arrive in the next few days, he said.

While the overall level of violence is down since the cease-fire formally took effect Thursday, the regime has stepped up attacks. The number of people killed every day has also risen steadily since a brief lull that coincided with the start of the truce. At least 26 people were reported killed on Monday.

In violence Tuesday, army tanks shelled the southern town of Busra al-Harir, killing at least two people, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group. The town, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of the capital of Damascus, is a stronghold of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Regime forces also shelled the Khaldiyeh neighborhood in the central city of Homs, a center of the rebellion against Assad, according to the Observatory. Homs has been under continuous regime attack, with only a short break on the first day of the cease-fire, activists said.

The regime appeared to be pushing to take control of the last rebel-held districts in Homs, said activists in the city. Khaldiyeh was shelled from three sides on Monday, and half of the nearby district of Bayada fell under the army’s control over the weekend. Activists said Monday that the Free Syrian Army was holding its ground in the Qarabees and Jouret al-Shayah neighborhoods.

On Monday, at least five people were killed in Homs shelling, the Observatory said. Across Syria, at least 26 people were killed Monday, including 10 in a daylong gunbattle between rebel fighters and the Syrian army in the northwestern town of Idlib, the group said.

Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said at least 55 people were killed Monday, including 26 in Idlib.

More Karin Laub.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations