10 Dead as Syria Opposition Urges Monitors to Visit Besieged Homs

The opposition Syrian National Council appealed Sunday for the Arab League to immediately send observers to the besieged city of Homs and other hotspots of a bloody crackdown on dissent, as activists said security forces killed 10 civilians across the country.

The call came a day before a first group of Arab League observers is set to arrive in Syria to begin monitoring a deal the 22-member bloc agreed with the government in Damascus aimed at ending nine months of violence.

"Since early this morning, the (Homs) neighborhood of Baba Amro has been under a tight siege and the threat of military invasion by an estimated 4,000 soldiers," the SNC said in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

"This is in addition to the nonstop bombing of Homs that has been going on for days," said the council, the main umbrella group of opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.

The central city of Homs has been a focal point of the Assad government's crackdown on anti-regime demonstrations, as well as the site of fierce clashes between the army and mutinous soldiers.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that security forces on Sunday pounded Baba Amro with mortar fire, wounding eight people.

"The neighborhood is still under heavy machinegun fire," the Britain-based watchdog said in a statement received by AFP, noting that two people were killed in different parts of the city.

Security forces also raided the town of al-Jerdi in eastern Deir al-Zour province, wounding four people and arresting dozens more, it said.

Meanwhile, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed Sunday four civilians in Homs, five in Deir al-Zour and another person in the southern Daraa province.

A nine-member advance team of Arab monitors arrived in Syria on Thursday to pave the way for the observer mission to oversee the deal to end the crackdown, which the U.N. estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.

"The Syrian National Council demands that the Arab League observers go to Homs immediately, specifically to the besieged neighborhoods, to fulfill their stated mission," it said in the statement.

"In addition, we demand that the observers go to all the hotspots in Syria, or withdraw and conclude their mission if it is not possible for them to do so.

"We hold the Arab League and the international community accountable for the massacres and bloodshed committed by the regime in Syria," said the opposition group.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the Arab League observers to vindicate his government's contention the violence in the country is the work of "armed terrorists."

Western governments and rights watchdogs blame the Assad regime for the bloodshed.

Opposition leaders charge that Syria agreed to the mission after weeks of prevarication in a "ploy" to head off a League threat to go to the U.N. Security Council over the crackdown.

Muallem met the advance team of Arab League officials on Saturday, in talks the ministry's spokesman called "positive".

Arab League Assistant Secretary General Samir Seif al-Yazal, head of the nine-member advance team, said the first group of observers, more than 50 experts, would leave for Damascus on Monday.

They will eventually number between 150 and 200.

The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that also calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.

But since signing the agreement, the Assad regime has been accused of pressing on with its crackdown on dissent.

The opposition SNC and human rights activists have charged that the Syrian government was behind twin suicide bomb attacks on Friday that killed 44 people in Damascus.

Assad's regime has blamed the attacks on "terrorist organizations," including al-Qaida, although it has yet to release details on how it reached such a conclusion.

The SNC said "the Syrian regime, alone, bears all the direct responsibility for the two terrorist explosions."

It said the government was trying to create the impression "that it faces danger coming from abroad and not a popular revolution demanding freedom and dignity."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least 21 civilians killed on Friday and 20 people killed by security forces on Saturday.

The bodies of four detained civilians were found on Saturday bearing signs of torture in Hula in Homs province, it said in a statement.

The Observatory demanded the Arab League "immediately head to the town of Hula to document this flagrant violation of human rights which is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in Syria."

The plight of Syrians was a focus of Pope Benedict XVI's Christmas Day prayers.

"May the Lord come to the aid of our world torn by so many conflicts ... May he bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed," he told pilgrims in the Vatican.