US warns Syria it can't deceive world over pullout

The US warned Syria it won't be able to deceive the world about compliance with a cease-fire plan, as regime forces pounded more opposition strongholds on Saturday in an apparent rush to crush resistance before troops must withdraw.

The latest fighting killed at least 87 civilians, almost half in the central Syrian village of Al Latamneh, activists said. Amateur video from the village showed the body of a baby with bloodied clothes and an apparent bullet wound in the chest. On another video, a barrage of shells are heard hitting a neighborhood while the skyline of the restive city of Homs is engulfed in white smoke.

Syrian President Bashar Assad last week accepted a cease-fire agreement brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan calling for government forces to withdraw from towns and villages by Tuesday, and for the regime and rebels to lay down their arms by 6 am on Thursday.

However, Western leaders are sceptical about Assad's intentions because of broken promises of the past and the recent escalation in attacks on opposition strongholds, including arrest sweeps and shelling of civilian areas. The U.S. ambassador to Syria posted online satellite images late Friday that he said cast doubt on the regime's readiness to pull out.

``This is not the reduction in offensive Syrian government security operations that all agree must be the first step for the Annan initiative to succeed,'' Ambassador Robert Ford wrote on the embassy's Facebook page.

Ford posted photos he said show the government has pulled back some forces, but kept others in place or simply shifted around troops and armored vehicles. Earlier this week, the government claimed it had withdrawn from several areas.
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`The regime and the Syrian people should know that we are watching,'' Ford wrote, citing satellite surveillance. ``The regime cannot hide the truth.''

The ambassador, who left Syria in February amid security concerns, said the Syrian government must give U.N. monitors access to confirm its compliance with the cease-fire. A U.N. advance team arrived in Damascus earlier this week; Annan's spokesman has said the U.N.-Arab league envoy hopes to put together a team of 200 to 250 observers.

Syria says the details of the mission have not been worked out.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, expressed alarm about escalating violence, saying Tuesday's deadline for a troop pullback ``is not an excuse for continued killing.'' On Friday, he urged the regime to cease all military action immediately and unconditionally.

In Saudi Arabia, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation said on Saturday that it believes some one million of Syria's 23 million residents need humanitarian assistance. The OIC, which has 57 Muslim majority member states, said it would provide $70 million in aid, including food and medical supplies. It has already sent nine trucks with relief to the areas most in need.

The group sent representatives to Syria, a member country, in late March and said it was willing to work closely with authorities there.

Saturday's deadliest fighting was reported in Al Latamneh in the central Hama province. Regime troops stormed the village after shelling it, killing at least 40 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Amateur video posted by activists showed Al Latamneh residents crying ``Allahu Akbar'' as they held up the body of the dead baby. Another video showed the bodies of several men covered in white sheets lined up on the ground.

In the nearby province of Homs, activists reported shelling of the city as well as the rebel-held areas of Rastan, Deir Baalabeh and Qusair.

In all, at least 87 people were killed on Saturday, the group said, while 13 unidentified bodies were found in the Deir Baalabeh neighborhood of Homs and 10 in Hreitan, in the northern province of Idlib. The grassroots Local Coordination Committees put the day's death toll at 121, including 59 in the Hama area.

The Syrian government restricts access of foreign journalists, and the activists' accounts could not be independently verified.

Syrian officials said troops arrested large numbers of gunmen and killed ``some others'' in the Damascus suburbs and in the center of the country. The government said it seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition on Saturday.
 

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