Syria pulls tanks from 'capital of the revolution'

BEIRUT?? After days of punishing assaults, Syria's army began withdrawing tanks from the restive city of Homs on Tuesday just as a team of Arab League observers was on its way to the central city, according to activists and an Arab official.

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Opposition activist Mohammed Saleh said the heavy bombardment of Homs stopped Tuesday morning and tanks were seen pulling out of the streets. Another Homs-based activist said he saw armored vehicles leaving early Tuesday on a highway leading to the city of Palmyra to the east. He asked that his name not be made public for fear of retribution.

For days, military forces had pounded Homs with artillery despite agreeing to an Arab League plan to stop the bloodshed. The Arab monitoring mission is meant to ensure the government complies with the deal to halt the nine-month crackdown on dissent.

Opponents of President Bashar Assad, however, doubt that the Arab League can budge the autocratic leader at the head of one of the Middle East's most repressive regimes.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters 20,000 protesters gathered in Homs early Tuesday ahead of the scheduled tour of the city by Arab League peace monitors.

Video: Thousands reported dead in Syria crackdown (on this page)

It said the activists were gathering in Khalidiya, one of the four parts of Homs where there has been heavy bloodshed as armed rebels fight security forces using tanks.

Elsewhere, several men from an "armed terrorist group" trying to cross from the Turkish border into Syria were shot dead, the state news agency said.

"Special forces were able to kill and wound several gunmen and seized some weapons, ammunitions, army uniforms, communication tools and fake identity cards," SANA said, but it did not give a specific casualty count.

SANA also reported that a "terrorist group" had attacked a gas pipeline near Homs but there were no further details immediately available.

Syria's top opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun called Sunday for the League to bring the U.N. Security Council into the effort . The U.N. says more than 5,000 people have been killed since March in the political violence.

In Cairo, an official at the Arab League's operations room said the Sudanese head of the mission to Syria, Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, was leading a team of at least 12 observers on their way to Homs Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, gave no further details.

'Yesterday was terrible'
The observers began their visit by meeting the governor of Homs, Syria's Dunia television channel said. According to opposition activists at least 34 people were killed in the city on Monday as tanks fired at targets among apartment blocks.

"Today is calm, unlike pervious days," Saleh said on Tuesday. "The shelling went on for days, but yesterday was terrible."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited reports from opposition activists in Homs saying at least 11 tanks had left a district they attacked on Monday, and that other tanks were being hidden.

Homs, Syria's third-largest city, has a population of 800,000 and is at the epicenter of the revolt against Assad, located about 100 miles north of the capital, Damascus. Many Syrians refer to Homs as the "capital of the revolution."

Video: Bloody crackdown continues in Syria (on this page)

Parts of Homs are defended by the Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors from the regular armed forces, who say they have tried to protect civilians.

The Arab League plan agreed to by Assad last week requires the government to remove its security forces and heavy weapons from city streets, start talks with opposition leaders and allow human rights workers and journalists into the country. Before Tuesday's redeployment of at least some tanks, there had been no sign that Assad was implementing any of the terms, much less letting up on his brutal crackdown.

Assad's opponents fear that the monitors ? who arrived in the country on Monday after weeks of negotiations with Arab states ? will be used as a cloak of respectability for a government that will hide the extent of violence.

'Guests of the government'
The teams will use government transport, according to Dabi. But that arrangement likely to fuel charges by the anti-Assad opposition that the monitoring mission will be impeded and hoodwinked from the outset.

Dr Mousab Azzawi, chief co-ordinator of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told msnbc.com: "We do not believe the monitors will be able to change anything.

"They are not free to see what they want, they cannot move anywhere without giving the government two hours' notice. They are essentially guests of the government they are supposed to be checking on."

Arab League delegates insist the mission will nevertheless maintain the "element of surprise" and be able to go wherever it chooses with no notice.

The monitoring mission launch marks the first international intervention on the ground in Syria since the start of the popular revolt inspired by Arab pro-democracy uprisings that have toppled several dictators this year.

Assad says he is fighting Islamist terrorism directed from abroad and that some 2,000 people have been killed, mainly soldiers and police.

The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45794794/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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