U.N. peace monitors set to begin mission in Syria as truce seems to erode

U.N. peace monitors set to begin mission in Syria as truce seems to erode.(AlArabiya).U.N. peace monitors are due to start their mission in Syria on Monday to oversee a shaky ceasefire undermined by persistent violence and the shelling of the opposition stronghold of Homs by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. As many as eight people have been killed on Monday by the Syrian troops, Al Arabiya reported citing activists at the Local Coordination Committees. The ceasefire is part of a broader peace plan brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan, but it looked increasingly under threat throughout the weekend as the government vowed a crackdown on a wave of “terrorist attacks” in Syria.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian general Robert Mood left to Norway and he will not return to Syria again, U.N. sources in New York told Al Arabiya. Mood was supposed to head the U.N. peace monitors in Damascus. Annan’s spokesman, Ahmed Fawzy, confirmed to Al Arabiya that Mood has returned back home and that the U.N. chief will choose a new leader for the team of peace monitors. An advance team of five unarmed monitors arrived in the capital Damascus on Sunday evening, a Reuters witness said. A Syrian official escorting the team at a Damascus hotel told Reuters that more observers were expected to arrive on Monday, but offered no details. Under the U.N. plan, two dozen more observers are due to enter Syria in coming days. As the monitors prepared to embark on their mission, violence persisted on the ground.
One activist said the city of Homs, one of the hotbeds of opposition to Assad, was bombarded on Sunday by government forces at a rate of “one shell per minute.” Casting further doubt on whether the ceasefire would hold, Syria said it would stop what it called “terrorist groups” from committing criminal acts, state television reported. 
Annan, joint special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League, brokered the six-point peace plan in March as part of international efforts to stop 13 months of violence. The U.N. Security Council authorized the deployment of up to 30 unarmed observers on Saturday in the first resolution on Syria the 15-nation council managed to approve unanimously since the uprising erupted in March 2011. Syrian government spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban said Syria could not be responsible for the safety of the monitors unless it was involved in “all steps on the ground.” On the eve of the mission, Syrian forces pounded Homs, activists said. “Early this morning we saw a helicopter and a spotter plane fly overhead. Ten minutes later, there was heavy shelling,” said Walid al-Fares, a local activist.Read and see (Video) the full story here.