BEIRUT: Syrian authorities allowed a team of United Nations ceasefire monitors to enter the battered city of Homs today after resident opposition activists said shelling and gunfire stopped for the first time in weeks. ‘A team of observers have been sent to Homs and met the governor,’ UN spokesman Khaled al-Masri said. ‘They are now visiting districts of the city.’
But activists in Homs said that the shelling ceased only to make it look as if the government was abiding by a truce, mediated by international Peace Envoy Kofi Annan. They said that shelling would resume as soon as the monitors left.
‘It is very clear that the Syrian government can stop the violence whenever it wants at anytime in the country,’ Walid al-Fares, an opposition activist living in Homs told Reuters. (Reuters)