Dominic Evans and Oliver Holmes, Reuters
Apr 18, 2012 – 5:04 PM ET
Last Updated: Apr 18, 2012 5:09 PM ET
UN observers outside Damascus
BEIRUT — When gunfire erupted on Wednesday, an advance team of UN observers got a taste of monitoring the shaky ceasefire that has so far failed to stop Syria’s violence.
Protesters denouncing President Bashar al-Assad had surrounded their cars near the capital, Damascus. Automatic weapons fire sent the crowds scurrying for safety.
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.There were no reports of casualties. But scenes of monitors’ vehicles immobilized in a crowd followed by pictures of men running away while automatic weapons fire rattles in the air were an ominous echo of an earlier Arab League monitoring mission that collapsed in failure in January.
The advance party of a half a dozen UN peacekeepers in blue berets, led by Colonel Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco, was touring the vicinity of Damascus in two white UN Land Cruisers with a Syrian police escort when trouble began.
Their cars were mobbed by protesters chanting demands to arm the rebel Free Syrian Army. A banner was plastered on one UN car reading: “The butcher continues killings. The observers continue observing, and the people continue with their revolution. We bow only to God.”
A video segment posted on YouTube showed the UN vehicles moving slowly down a street flanked on both sides by crowds of civilians when gunshots sounded somewhere up ahead and the men turned and ran for safety.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that a team of just 250 observers is not big enough. But on Wednesday Syria – which has the power to approve the force under a UN Security Council resolution – rejected Ban’s call for more monitors.
At the same time, the army kept up its shelling of targets in the city of Homs in violation of the week-old ceasefire.
Explosions rocked the battered Khalidiyah quarter of Homs and plumes of black smoke drifted over the rooftops.
In northern Idlib province, six members of the security forces were killed by a bomb placed by an “armed terrorist group”, state news agency SANA said. It was the second such attack in two days.
“We are at a crucial turning point,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. “Either we succeed with … the Annan plan with the help of monitors … or Assad will squander his last chance before additional measures have to be considered.”
While the truce has held in some parts of Syria since Assad pledged to enforce it last week, in strong opposition areas such as Homs, Hama, Idlib and Deraa the army has kept up attacks on rebels, using heavy weapons in violation of the pledge by Damascus to pull back.
Turkish special police officers of the customs narcotic and smuggling department stand near the ship Atlantic Cruiser, sailing under the colours of Antigua and Barbuda, in the port of Iskenderun, April 18, 2012.
Murad Sezer/REUTERS.
Meanwhile, a German-owned ship suspected of carrying weapons and ammunition heading to Syria was being towed into Turkey’s Mediterranean Iskenderun port for inspection on Wednesday, officials said.
The “Atlantic Cruiser” is already being investigated by Germany after Der Spiegel news magazine reported the ship was carrying Iranian weapons to Syria in breach of an arms embargo.
Turkish Foreign Ministry and port officials said the ship was being towed into the port which is located on Turkey’s eastern Mediterranean coast just over 100 km (60 miles) north of Syria, on suspicion it was carrying weapons.
The officials could not confirm if there were weapons aboard but said they were planning to inspect all the ship’s cargo once it had been offloaded. The ship had been due to offload some of its cargo in Turkey as part of its route, they said.
Posted in: News, World Tags: Syria .
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