Damascus, Nov 3: Syrian troops killed 20 civilians and arrested dozens today, a rights watchdog said, a day after Damascus pledged to withdraw its forces from protest hubs under a deal with the Arab League to end months of bloodshed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the victims fell in various neighbourhoods of the flashpoint protest city of Homs, in central Syria, where government forces reportedly used heavy tank-mounted machineguns.
As activists called for mass demonstrations on Friday to test the government's commitment to the peace blueprint, the largest opposition group held talks in Cairo with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi to voice its concerns.
“We told the secretary general of our fears that the regime will not keep its promises,” said Samir al-Nashar, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council.
Arabi briefed them on the peace plan, which also calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to engage in a national dialogue with his opponents, said Nashar, adding that the SNC does not want talks but for Assad to quit.
“We are not talking about a dialogue. We offered to engage in negotiations to move from a authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. And we ask that Bashar al-Assad resign.”
The SNC is the largest and most representative Syrian opposition grouping. On Wednesday it urged the Arab League to freeze Syria's membership in the 22-strong organisation and recognise it as the sole representative of the opposition.
Assad's opponents are sceptical about the regime's readiness to rein in a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has cost more than 3,000 lives since mid-March.
London and Washington said that despite Damascus's agreement to the Arab League plan after weeks of prevarication, they still believed Assad must heed the demands of anti-government protesters and step down. Hours after Syria agreed to the Arab plan its security forces pressed on with the crackdown.
Twenty people were killed in several flashpoint neighbourhoods of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, after an earlier toll spoke of nine dead. Gunfire continued to explode across the city, which was pounded during the day with heavy machineguns mounted on tanks, according to activists.
Security forces also arrested “more than 80 people at dawn in Deir Ezzor (eastern Syria) and neighbouring districts,” the statement added.
Under the hard-won deal announced at Arab League headquarters in Cairo yesterday, the Syrian government pledged to remove troops from all protest centres although no timetable is given.
Damascus also agreed to release people arrested since the anti-regime protests erupted in mid-March and to engage in a national dialogue with the opposition.
