BEIRUT, April 19, 2012 (AFP) – Syrian troops killed a civilian on Thursday a week into a UN-backed truce as UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged the Security Council to boost a military observer mission to oversee the promised ceasefire.
Three civilians were also wounded when security forces opened fire in the northeastern oil city of Deir Ezzor before clashes erupted between troops and rebel fighters, a Britain-based human rights watchdog said.
’An assault by government forces on the Al-Tob neighbourhood of Deir Ezzor killed one civilian and wounded three, and fighting is now raging between troops and deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
Violence in Syria on Wednesday killed 30 people, 22 of them civilians, the watchdog said.
A renewed bombardment by regime forces of rebel neighbourhoods of the flashpoint central city of Homs killed 13 civilians, while three more were killed in shelling of the town of Qusayr just to the north.
A further six civilians, including a nine-year-old girl, were killed in separate incidents in Idlib and Aleppo provinces in the north, Hama province in the centre and Damascus and Daraa provinces to the south, the Observatory added.
Eight government troops were also killed, seven of them in a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Idlib town of Idlib, where fighters of the rebel Free Syrian Army have been active.
In a report to be discussed by the Security Council on Thursday, the UN chief called for an expanded observer mission to be sent to monitor the truce even though he said President Bashar al-Assad had failed to end the violence.
Ban said he wanted 300 unarmed observers sent on a three-month mission, while adding that it was ’critical’ for Assad to adhere to an agreed peace plan.
His report, obtained by AFP, said that even though Syrian troops have not been withdrawn from cities and violence has escalated since the ceasefire began last Thursday, ’an opportunity for progress may now exist, on which we need to build.’
An observer advance party which arrived in the Syrian capital on Sunday headed out from its Damascus base on Thursday but declined to say where it was going.
’We don’t discuss our plan for security raison,’ said its leader, Colonel Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco.
Himmiche declined to be drawn on negotiations with the Syrian government on a protocol to govern the mission’s operations.
’We are military observers so I’m not dealing with the diplomatic case at all. We are doing the operations,’ he said.