Daraa residents live in despair, defiance

Daraa: Bursts of gunfire crackled close to the Al Omari mosque in Daraa, sending some of the frantic crowd scattering while others clung on to the UN peace monitors' convoy.

As the cars edged forward through the massed residents of the birthplace of Syria's bloody uprising, one man yelled a chilling running commentary about his presumed fate.

"You will see the firing on us — at the trigger point where the revolution started," he cried. "You will see me on the television as a martyr. You will recognise me. I will say farewell to you. We need international protection."

Then he and the other diehard protesters peeled away, freeing the vehicles to pass through a checkpoint set up by the Syrian army. A soldier rolled a rock away to let the convoy pass to the other side, where passers-by made faceless by the gathering darkness called out "God is Great!" — the universal signifier of the fight against President Bashar Al Assad's regime.

This disturbing journey to the heart of Syria's tragedy told of despair, defiance and a situation far from the two-week-old truce demanded by the UN Security Council and brokered by Kofi Annan, the former UN head.

Last-ditch effort

Annan's truce plan is a last-ditch international effort to stop the bloodshed, struck after months of disagreements between the Syrian regime's supporters in Moscow and Beijing and the western and Gulf capitals that want to force Al Assad from power.

Members of the 15-strong UN monitor team so far deployed have seen chaos and desperation in some places, raising fears that the 300-strong mission proposed by Annan will not be enough to contain the bloodshed.

Opposition activists say loyalists killed more than 30 people in one day in the central city of Hama last week, while Syrian state television said nine people died in a suicide bombing in central Damascus on Friday.

"Is this the ceasefire?" shouted another Daraa resident jammed against the UN convoy.

"We will continue with this revolution. This is the challenge for you, the international community: to protect the civilians."

Daraa is the southern city where the arrests of a group of children for scrawling anti-government graffiti in March last year triggered popular protests, a brutal government response and then an anti-regime uprising that has turned the country into a patchwork of revolution.

The UN estimates that more than 9,000 civilians have been killed since then, while the Syrian regime — which maintains it is the victim of a plot backed by foreign interests — says more than 2,000 security force members have died. Activists claim a 10-year old boy was killed in shooting in Daraa on Thursday.

While independent rights groups say Syrian government forces are responsible for the vast majority of the violence, the initially peaceful opposition has taken on a more militarised aspect as army defectors, community defenders and other enemies of Al Assad have rallied to the anti-regime cause.

— Financial Times