Claims Assad stalling on ceasefire

Bashar al-Assad’s regime is trying to crush the uprising in Syria before a UN truce plan comes into effect next week, as troops carried out intense raids, arrests and shelling yesterday, opposition activists have claimed.

Syria has accepted a 10 April deadline to carry out international envoy Kofi Annan’s plan, which requires it to withdraw its forces from towns and cities and observe a ceasefire, to be immediately followed by a withdrawal by rebel fighters. Following that, all sides are supposed to discuss a political solution to the year-old conflict that has edged the country toward civil war.

The plan also calls for an immediate daily two-hour halt to fighting so humanitarian aid can reach civilians, as well as access for aid groups and journalists.

Although the latest plan from the United Nations has been cautiously welcomed by Western powers, opposition activists say it is too little too late, and that Mr Assad is deliberately stalling proceedings to crush dissent.

“He thinks he can win more time to take control of all Syrian cities,” activist Adel al-Omari said by phone from the southern town of Dael. “This won’t happen, because as soon as he withdraws his tanks from the cities, the people will come out and push to topple the regime.”

The claims came as analysts warned that Gulf nations’ plans to send millions of dollars a month to the rebels as salaries for fighters could amount to a blank cheque to build up an arsenal against government forces and lead to a proxy war.

There are concerns the promised funding could lead to even more bloodshed. Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics, said: “My fear is that it will be a turning point, but not for the rebels.”

He said the conflict could become a “war by proxy” with powerful international players.

“No-one knows what the cost of such a conflict will be on Syria and the region.”

Russia’s foreign ministry said yesterday that Syria had promised it has started implementing the plan. The ministry’s statement did not say which troops – if any – had been withdrawn or provide further details. It called on rebel forces to follow suit.

The Syrian government has not commented publicly on the 10 April deadline. It has accepted other peace plans in recent months only to ignore them on the ground. An Arab League effort that included sending in monitors to promote a ceasefire collapsed into renewed violence in November.

It also remains unclear whether rebel forces fighting government troops under the banner of the Free Syrian Army would respect a ceasefire. Dozens of local militias in different parts of the country have only loose links to each other and to their official leadership, members of which are currently in exile in Turkey.

One activist in the central Homs region said that the area’s biggest rebel group, the Farouq Brigade, would cease its attacks on government targets if the government stopped shelling towns and cities.

“They will continue to resist until they see that there is a positive step from the regime,” Mahmoud Orabi said from the town of Qusair.

“If the regime withdraws and carries out the plan, the Free Army will respect it, too.”

Activists said Syrian forces shelled rebellious neighbourhoods in the central city of Homs and the nearby towns Qusair and Rastan yesterday and carried out raid-and-arrest campaigns elsewhere.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least two civilians were killed in clashes between rebels and government forces that stormed the town of Taftanaz and torched a number of homes.