Syria ceasefire 'on track' despite bloodshed

Demonstrations were held across Syria Friday and at least 26 people were reported killed.

BEIRUT // Despite more deaths in Syria yesterday, a spokesman for the United Nations-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan said the UN-brokered peace plan is still "on track".

Ahmad Fawzi's comments came as thousands protested against the regime of the Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, while government forces again responded with violence, according to activists.

Mr Fawzi told a briefing in Geneva that there were "small signs of compliance" with the peace plan.

"I would say that the Annan plan is on track and a crisis that has been going on for over a year is not going to be resolved in a day or a week."

Demonstrations were held across the country including in Hama, Homs, Deraa and Aleppo, where the city's main university campus was stormed by security forces on Wednesday, with four people reportedly killed.

Yesterday, Syrian troops fired live ammunition on thousands of demonstrators in the city, killing a teenager and wounding and arresting scores, according to activists.

"The people are incensed by what happened at the university," said Mohammed Saeed, an Aleppo-based activist. "Everyone wants to express solidarity with those students."

At least 26 people were killed yesterday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of opposition activists, said at least 33 people were killed. The figures could not be independently verified.

Mr Fawzi said Mr Annan is due to brief the Security Council on the situation in Syria on Tuesday.

"[Even] on the days that we feel there is satisfactory progress ... we are horrified by the extent of the violence that we see on the ground," he said.

Mr Annan's six-point peace plan includes a ceasefire by both Syrian government forces and rebel fighters. While the daily violence appears to have slightly dropped since the plan was introduced last month, activists say hundreds have been killed since then. As part of the plan, a team of about 50 UN military observers have now been deployed to Syria to monitor the ceasefire.

The truce, which began on April 12, was supposed to see the withdrawal of the Syrian army's heavy weapons from population centres, something Mr Fawzi said has been achieved in some cases, but not in others.

"Some violence has receded, some violence remains," he said. "I'm not saying that is satisfactory."

The United States this week presented a bleaker view of the peace plan's effect so far.

"If the regime's intransigence continues, the international community is going to have to admit defeat," the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said on Thursday.

"It is clear and we will not deny that the plan has not been succeeding thus far."

Meanwhile, 21 people were charged yesterday in connection with a ship intercepted in Lebanon last week that was found carrying weapons reportedly bound for Syria.

Lebanon's military prosecutor, Saqr Saqr, charged the group, which includes 13 Syrians, four Lebanese citizens and two Egyptians, with purchasing and shipping the weapons from Libya with the aim of carrying out "terrorist acts". Fourteen of the accused are in custody, while seven remain at large.

* With reports by Reuters and Associated Press