Dubai The UN Security Council Saturday unanimously voted on its first- ever resolution on the Syria crisis, allowing an advance party of ceasefire monitors to go to the country on the brink of civil war.
UN Resolution 2042 approved the first 30 unarmed military monitors, who are expected to leave within days.
Russia and China joined the other 13 council members and voted in favour of the Western-Arab draft resolution. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, however, made clear that there were limits to the kind of UN action Moscow could support. "Out of respect for the sovereignty of Syria we have cautioned against destructive attempts at external interference or imposing any kind of illusory fixes," he said.
Meanwhile, opposition activists said at least six people were killed after ceasefire. Activists also reported the first shelling, in the city of Homs, by forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people were killed during a funeral march in Aleppo, one by shelling in Homs and a sixth succumbed to wounds inflicted by torture in Rastan, straddling the Damascus-Aleppo road.
A video, shot in a destroyed part of what the cameraman says is the Homs neighbourhood of Al Qarabis, showed two tanks rushing through the streets to the sound of heavy gunfire and explosions.
"Look with your own eyes. Look, world. Watch what they are doing," the man making the video screams as a tank raises its turret.
The state news agency Sana said "armed terrorists" killed five people in ambushes around the country yesterday, and kidnapped a parliamentary candidate from the north.
