UN observers begin work in Syria

An advance team of six international observers arrived in Damascus late on Sunday, the United Nations said. The delegation -- the first of 30 monitors the UN Security Council approved on Saturday -- will set up a headquarters and prepare routines to verify a cessation of hostilities. "They've arrived and they will start work (on Monday) morning," UN peacekeeping department spokesman Kieran Dwyer said. "The other monitors in the advance party are still expected in Syria in coming days." Their mission is just one part of the six-point peace plan that Syria agreed with UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. The former UN chief wants more than 200 observers to be deployed in Syria, but the Security Council has said there would be a full mission only if the violence halts. The observers were welcomed by Damascus, which hoped they would see for themselves the "crimes" committed by "armed terrorist groups," said Syria's state news agency SANA. They face a perilous task, with Western nations doubting Assad's commitment to the ceasefire amid reports his forces have kept battering rebel strongholds and clashed with rebels. Syrian authorities have said they cannot guarantee the safety of the observers and that they would have to be informed of all movements of UN teams to assure their safety. A spike in deadly violence forced the Arab League to end its own Syrian monitoring mission in late January, barely a month after sending observers. “We are going to organise ourselves in order to be ready to do our task as soon as possible,” the leader of the advance guard, Colonel Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco, told reporters at a Damascus hotel before meeting Syrian officials in the capital, Reuters reported. “All peacekeepers are optimistic,” he added when asked if he was hopeful an observer mission that should be expanded to 250 could cement a truce marked by persistent, sporadic violence. The UN human rights investigators said on Monday they had received reports of shelling and arrests by Syrian forces since the ceasefire, as well as executions of soldiers captured by rebel forces, although the violence was generally less than before the UN-brokered truce came into effect on Thursday. They also reported a “deteriorating humanitarian situation” and said it was "seriously concerned over ... the shelling of the (Khalidiya) neighbourhood and other districts in Homs by government forces and the use of heavy weaponry, such as machineguns in other areas, including Idlib and some suburbs of Damascus.” Colonel Himmiche is the second UN peacekeeping officer sent to Damascus to prepare a monitoring mission. Norwegian General Robert Mood took a team of 10 to Syria on April 5 and returned to Geneva on April 10 to brief Annan. But Mood then went back to Oslo and has not been heard from in public since. The UN has denied there was any problem. But Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, accused Mood of “sort of fleeing his position in the middle of action.” Syria blames a year of escalating violence on “terrorists” seeking to topple Assad and restricts independent journalists access to the country, making it hard to verify reports. The UN estimates Assad’s forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the uprising. Syrian authorities say foreign-backed militants have killed over 2,600 soldiers and police.