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Syrian activists: Deadly mortar shelling at farming village of Mishmishan as cease-fire unravels

An anti-Syrian regime mourner shouts slogans April 30, 2012, during the funeral procession of the activist Nour al-Zahraa, 23, who was shot by Syrian security forces in Damascus, Syria. (AP Photo)

(CBS/AP) BEIRUT – Syrian forces fired mortar shells

at a farming village in the country’s north Tuesday, killing at least seven people, many from the same family, according to

activists.

An anti-Syrian regime mourner shouts

slogans April 30, 2012, during the funeral procession of the activist Nour al-Zahraa, 23, who was shot by Syrian security

forces in Damascus, Syria. (AP Photo)

In one

video posted online, a bearded man storms into a clinic and yells, “Film me! Film me!”

Counting on his fingers, he

says the attack killed his mother, sister, two of his brothers and a nephew.

“That’s my son!” he says, pointing to a

wounded boy with white bandages on his legs, arms and back. “That’s my brother and that’s my nephew!” he says, pointing to

a body on the floor in a pool of blood and another on a gurney.

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The fresh violence in the village of Mishmishan underlines the continual

unraveling of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that was supposed to begin on April 12 but has never taken hold. The truce is part

of a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan to allow for talks by all parties on a political solution to the

country’s conflict.

In Damascus, British broadcaster Sky News reported that armed Syrian officials confiscated a television

camera from its crew in an apparent violation of the peace plan.

The U.N. says more than 9,000 people have been killed

since an uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011, prompting a brutal crackdown by government

forces.

The shelling of Mishmishan, an agricultural area near the border with Turkey, also highlights the huge

challenge facing a 16-person U.N. team that is trying to monitor the truce in a country slightly larger than North Dakota,

where violence is widespread and often in relatively isolated areas.

Video posted online of a funeral in Mishmishan

show hundreds of people marching through the village, then lining up to pray over the bodies, which lie in the back of three

white pickup trucks. The videos list seven dead.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for

Human Rights, said 10 people were killed in the attack, seven of them when a mortar fell on their house. The three others

died elsewhere in the village, he said.

The Observatory also said a 13-year-old was killed Tuesday in the nearby town

of Maaret al-Noman by random gunfire from regime forces.

“He was in his house when a bullet came in and hit him in the

neck,” activist Fadi al-Yassin said via Skype.

Activist claims and videos could not be independently verified. The

Syrian government rarely comments on specific events in the country and bars most media from independent reporting — despite

agreeing to do so in accepting Annan’s plan.

The U.N. observer team is supposed to oversee the truce and prepare for

the arrival of the 300 observers authorized by the U.N. The observers’ presence has tempered violence in some areas while

the regime has launched attacks on opposition districts that have welcomed the team with anti-government

rallies.

Syria’s state news agency said some U.N. observers were visiting the embattled Khaldiyeh neighborhood in the

central city of Homs on Tuesday. They also visited the town of Ariha in the north, according to activists and amateur

videos.

Analysts say the Annan plan is unlikely to succeed, though a larger observer presence could reduce

violence.

It is unclear when the full contingent of observers will deploy in Syria.

 

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