Syria attack kills 21; rebels say protect UN monitors

At least 21 people were killed on Tuesday in an attack in northern Syria, activists said, and members of a team of UN monitors caught in the incident said they were in rebel hands "for their own protection."

When Reuters asked one of the four monitors by phone if they were being held prisoner, he said: "We are safe with the (rebel) Free Army."

A spokesman for the rebel military council said the rebels were working on a safe exit for the monitors. A n internal UN document obtained by Reuters said that a total of six monitors were under rebel "protection" in a "friendly environment."

"They are now with the Free Army which is protecting them. If they leave, the regime will terminate them because they have witnessed one of its crimes and it does not want them to tell the truth," rebel Major Sami al-Kurdi told Reuters.

"We will get them out tomorrow," he said later. The internal U.N. document confirmed the UN team in Syria "will conduct a patrol to pick up the mentioned UNMOs (observers)" on Wednesday.

Each side blamed the other for the attack in Khan Sheikhoun in northern Idlib province.

Some rebel and opposition sources put the death toll from the attack as high as 66.

Pro-government Addounia TV said gunmen had opened fire on the monitors, but did not mention casualties.

The monitor who spoke to Reuters said gunfire had erupted as a seven-man UN team toured Khan Sheikhoun, then a blast damaged one of the group's vehicles.

Ahmad Fawzi, international mediator Kofi Annan's spokesman, said the convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device.

"Three UN vehicles were damaged but no UN personnel were hurt in this explosion. The mission has sent a patrol team to the area to help to extract those UN military observers," he said in a statement.

Internet footage appeared to show a white vehicle, like those used by the monitors, with a damaged front. In Damascus Major General Robert Mood, the head of the UN monitoring mission, told reporters the team was safe, without elaborating.

A British-based opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said government troops had opened fire on a funeral procession in the town, about 220 km (140 miles) north of Damascus.

The group said a total of 46 people had been killed by government forces across the country. There was no independent confirmation, and Syria has limited journalists' access during the uprising.

Saudi-Iranian Rivalry

Persistent bloodshed since then has led Saudi Arabia to warn that Annan's plan is losing credibility. Saudi Arabia would welcome Assad's removal as a blow to his backers in Shi'ite Muslim Iran, Riyadh's rival for influence in the Gulf.

Elsewhere, opposition activists said government forces killed two insurgents in the eastern oil town of Deir al-Zor and continued a wave of arrests in which hundreds of people have been detained in recent days.

The Annan plan also calls on Assad's forces and rebels to allow free distribution of humanitarian aid, over which the United Nations is at loggerheads with Syria.

The United Nations has rebuffed a demand by Damascus that it manage the delivery of all humanitarian aid to a million people in areas stricken by the conflict.

"That position is a non-starter ... as it should be," said one UN diplomat.

"OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) can't allow the Syrian government to use it as a way to get people (they want to arrest) or to deliver aid only to government supporters."

UN aid chief Valerie Amos said on Tuesday that talks with Syria were continuing but have been "very slow."

On Tuesday, relief group Medecins sans Frontieres said combatants were targeting health facilities in the northern Idlib region, and called on all sides to "respect the physical integrity of wounded persons, doctors and health care facilities".

The sectarian dimension of the uprising has given rise to fears of a spillover beyond Syria's borders, including to neighbouring Lebanon, where there have been three days of fighting between members of the Alawite sect - to which Syria's ruling circle belongs.

At least eight people have been killed and more than 70 wounded since fighters in adjacent Alawite and Sunni districts of Tripoli began firing small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, following the arrest of a man who has been charged with membership of a "terrorist" organisation.

Syria - which has influence with the Lebanese military and intelligence apparatus - has demanded that Lebanon crack down on groups moving weapons across the border to Syrian insurgents.

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