Syrian forces shot dead four civilians on a bus today and fighting raged near Damascus, dissidents said, as international pressure mounted on president Bashar al-Assad to honour UN-backed ceasefire pledges to order his troops back to barracks.
In the city of Hama, an anti-Assad hotbed, an explosion ripped through a building, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens more, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Another activist group, the grassroots Local Coordination Committee, said the blast was caused by a rocket launched into the building and put the death toll much higher at 54, including several children. A third activist source said the explosion may have come from inside the building.
It was not immediately possible to reconcile the varying accounts.
There was no comment from Syria's government, which says it is committed to UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan's April 12th ceasefire accord, but reserves the right to respond to what it says are continued attacks by "terrorist groups".
Hama has been hosting a small team of United Nations observers, who are preparing the way for a larger UN mission which will arrive to monitor the ceasefire pact.
In defiance of the truce accord, shelling was relentless in Douma, east of the capital, residents said, giving further ammunition to Western states such as France that want broad
United Nations sanctions to try to end more than a year of fighting in which 9,000 people have been killed.
As well as urging faster deployment of UN monitors, French foreign minister Alain Juppe said Paris would push for a so-called "Chapter 7" resolution, which would mean punitive sanctions, next month if Mr Assad's forces did not pull back.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people were killed when security forces opened fire on a bus at a checkpoint on the main road from Aleppo to Damascus. An elderly man was also killed, it added, in heavy fighting in the southern city of Deraa, crucible of the anti-Assad revolt that flared 13 months ago after uprisings against autocratic leaders in North Africa and the Middle East.
There was no mention of the bus shooting or bombardment in Syria's rigidly controlled media or comment from the authorities in Damascus, which has barred most foreign journalists since the revolt started.
Mr Annan, a former UN secretary-general, told the Security Council yesterday that Syria had failed to withdraw weapons from population centres in violation of the terms of the April 12th truce he engineered.
"Everything we have seen suggests that the Syrians are wanting to play for time and they haven't any real intention to start a political process and a transition. But we need to call their bluff, as it were, and test that," a senior Western diplomat told reporters in New York on condition of anonymity.
The latest violence comes two days after 31 people were killed in Hama immediately after UN monitors left the area and may prompt more outside pressure on Mr Assad.
Damascus says 2,600 of its security personnel have been killed by the rebel armed groups that operate in parts of the country of 23 million.
Mr Annan said Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moualem had written to him saying that "the withdrawal of massed troops and heavy weapons from in and around population centres is now complete and military operations have ceased".
However, Mr Annan's team cited satellite imagery as evidence that tanks are lurking out of sight on the outskirts of cities.
For all the rhetoric, France and other Western powers have few tools to dislodge Mr Assad, who succeeded his long-ruling father Hafez al-Assad in 2000 and who has brushed aside all calls to hand over power.
They are particularly wary of military intervention similar to Nato's Libya air campaign that helped topple Muammar Gadafy for fear it could draw in powerful Assad allies such as Iran and Hezbollah militants and further destabilise the Middle East.
Reuters