Arab League monitors checking if Syria is ending a military crackdown on popular unrest said they saw "nothing frightening" in an initial visit to the protest hotbed of Homs, although a longer investigation would be needed.
Given the brief and limited nature of the monitors' tour yesterday, the comment by their chief may alarm opposition activists who fear the mission could end up cloaking Damascus in respectability, whitewashing president Bashar al-Assad's record.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed 15 people across the country on Tuesday, six of them in Homs. It said 34 were killed the day before.
"Some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening," Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, chief of the monitoring contingent, told Reuters by telephone from Damascus.
"The situation seemed reassuring so far," he said today after his team's foray into the city of one million people, the epicentre of anti-Assad upheaval inspired by the fall of several other Arab autocrats in uprisings this year.
"Yesterday was quiet and there were no clashes. We did not see tanks but we did see some armoured vehicles. But remember this was only the first day and it will need investigation. We have 20 people who will be there for a long time."
Syria's Addounia television quoted Gen Dabi as saying "Yes...we saw gunmen in the city of Homs." It gave no further details.
Monitors were to pay a second visit to Homs today and also go for the first time to the city of Hama, another hotspot of unrest, the Idlib region on the northwest border with Turkey where anti-Assad insurgents have battled security forces, and Deraa in the south, the cradle of the nine-month-old revolt.
Activists say about a third of the estimated 5,000 people killed in unrest in Syria since March died in Homs. Dozens have been killed in the past week alone and thousands arrested in the months before the 22-state Arab League was invited in.
Dr Assad says he is fighting an insurgency by armed terrorists who have killed 2,000 soldiers and police.
State television on Wednesday flashed news that Syria has freed 755 people detained in the unrest "whose hands were not stained with Syrian blood." Releasing detainees is part of Assad's pact with the Arab League to defuse the crisis.
But there are still 15,000 Syrians in detention, according to Amnesty International.
Gen Dabi led the first group of monitors to Homs escorted by Syrian authorities. They were shown destruction in the district of Baba Amr, where tanks fired into residential areas the day before, according to amateur video recorded by activists.
Video reports, which cannot be independently verified, have shown parts of Homs looking like a war zone. Constant machinegun and sniper fire is audible and corpses are mangled by blasts.
International journalists are mostly barred from Syria, making it difficult to confirm accounts from conflict zones.
State television on Wednesday flashed news that Syria has freed 755 people detained in the unrest "whose hands were not stained with Syrian blood".
Releasing detainees is part of Dr Assad's pact with the Arab League to defuse the crisis. There are still 15,000 Syrians in detention, according to Amnesty International.
Reuters