Syrian Forces Kill 18 Civilians, 3 Army Deserters

Syrian security forces on Monday killed 21 people across the country, 13 of them in the flashpoint central province of Homs, activists said.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said regime troops killed eighteen civilians and three army defectors, “nine of them under torture.”

Thirteen people were killed in Homs, five in the northwestern province of Idlib, one in the Damascus suburb of Douma, one in the central province of Hama and another in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, the LCC said.

Activists said regime troops fired on protesters Monday in the city of Homs as Arab League observers toured the area to see whether President Bashar Assad's government is abiding by its pledge to halt the 10-month-old crackdown on dissent.

In the capital Damascus, thousands held prayers for those killed since the uprising began in March. Christian and Muslim religious leaders attended the service, and throngs packed the city's Holy Cross church, its yards and a nearby street.

"Enough killings in our beloved Syria," the country's top Sunni clergyman, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, told the crowd at the prayer service. His son was shot dead in October.

The 165 foreign monitors are supposed to be ensuring that Syria complies with the Arab League plan stipulating the regime stop killing protesters, remove heavy weaponry, such as tanks, from all cities, free all political prisoners and allow in human rights organizations and foreign journalists. Syria agreed to the plan on Dec. 19.

However, the crackdown has not stopped and opposition activists say around 450 people have been killed by the regime since observers began work on Dec. 21.

The U.N. estimated several weeks ago that more than 5,000 people have been killed in political violence since March. Since that report, opposition activists say hundreds more have died.

On Sunday, the Arab League repeated its demand for the Syrian government to immediately stop all bloodshed.

It was not immediately clear whether the foreign observers witnessed the regime forces opening fire in the Khaldiyeh neighborhood of Homs. Several people were reported wounded.

Majd Amer, an activist in Homs, said the shooting started after thousands of protesters surrounded a group of observers, urging them to go to Khaldiyeh, where anti-regime protesters are known to be active. The observers' Syrian escorts wanted to take them to the nearby Abbassiyah neighborhood, where many regime supporters live, he said.

"Sporadic shooting was heard for a few seconds," Amer said.

The opposition has accused Syria of trying to mislead the activists by showing them areas where regime support is strong.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi said Sunday observers will continue their month-long mission in Syria, despite claims by activists that the mission is giving cover to Assad's crackdown on protesters and delaying further action against the regime in forums such as the U.N. Security Council.

In Cairo, Adnan al-Khudeir, head of the operations room that the monitors report to, said more observers will head to Syria in the coming days and the delegation should reach 200. He said the mission then will expand its work in Syria to reach the eastern province of Deir al-Zour and predominantly Kurdish areas to the northeast.

The government says that the turmoil in Syria is not an uprising but the work of terrorists and foreign-backed armed gangs. Activists and other observers deny that.