Unrest continues to mar Syria
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E-mail Xinhua, June 8, 2012
Violence continued to plague Syria on Thursday, claiming the lives of scores across the country, while the international community has been trying to shore up the six-point peace plane negotiated by UN-Arab League (AL) joint envoy to Syria Kofi Annan.
Armed groups targeted a family vehicle on Thursday in the mountainous area of Hafeh near coastal Latakia province, killing a teenage boy and injuring four of his sisters, said official SANA news agency.
In another incident, a military judge was assassinated by armed groups in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of Syria's anti- government movement, SANA reported, saying armed men showered the judge's car with bullets, killing him instantly along with his driver and seriously injuring his daughter.
In the suburbs of Daraa, a suicide bomber blew up his car at the western entrance of al-Hrak town near a security checkpoint, wounding one agent only, SANA said.
Also on Thursday, Syrian authorities foiled at dawn an infiltration attempt by an armed terrorist group from Lebanon into Syria via Talkalakh city in central Homs province, said SANA, adding a number of the group's members were killed and the rest fled back to Lebanon.
Syria's state TV said Thursday that armed groups killed nine people in Mazraat al-Qubeir village in central Hama province on Wednesday. The TV, meanwhile, citing unnamed source denied as " categorically baseless" media reports that government troops shelled and killed more than 80 people in the same village.
Government troops intervened and clashed with the gunmen at the request of local residents, it added, noting that reports alleging massacre was designed to tarnish and frame the Syrian administration a night before a scheduled meeting of the UN Security Council.
Outside Syria, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday at the UN General Assembly that UN observers in Syria were attacked while trying to reach Qubeir village, calling the reported killing "shocking and sickening."
The unarmed monitors were initially denied access to the reported massacre site in al-Qubeir village, and later on "were shot at with small arms", Ban said, however, spokesperson of the UN mission said they were blocked firstly by an army checkpoint and then by villagers who warned them that their lives would be at risk had they tried to enter the village.
Meanwhile, The secretary general called on the Syrian government to fully implement a six-point peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, which was widely backed by the international community and officially accepted by Damascus, saying "I therefore call on ( Syrian) President (Bashar) Assad to urgently and unconditionally implement the six-point Annan plan."
Annan said Thursday that given the persistent violence in Syria, his six-point peace plan, which calls for withdrawal of heavy weapons and troops from population centers, a daily halt in fighting for the delivery of humanitarian aid, treatment for the wounded, and talks between government and opposition, has not been implemented.
"Today, despite the acceptance of the six-point plan and the deployment of a courageous mission of United Nations observers to Syria, I must be frank and confirm that the plan is not being implemented," Annan said.
