AFP - Getty Images
Syrian army tanks in the background as a group of Arab League observers tour the flashpoint central city of Homs on December 27, 2011.
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Teams of Arab League observers begin visiting?three more Syrian cities on Thursday, following controversy when their leader said he had seen "nothing frightening" during an initial trip to the heavily-attacked hotspot of Homs.
The mission, the first international involvement on the ground in Syria since the revolt began last March, is checking?whether government forces are complying with a peace plan following the nine-month uprising against President Bashar Assad.
The observers briefly visited Homs on Tuesday then returned to Wednesday with a Syrian government escort, to the dismay of demonstrators who mobbed their car.
The observers' leader, Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, initially told Reuters they had seen "nothing frightening" during their visit -- a comment decried by activists who said Homs had been the epicenter of deadly clashes between the Syrian army and rebels.
Human rights campaigners say Dabi is an inappropriate choice to lead the mission, as he?has been?linked to genocide in Sudan for which that country's president is sought by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Dabi later said he needed more time to make an assessment of the city, which was bombarded by government forces in the days before the visit.
His teams went back to Baba Amr district, one of the worst-hit, to see shattered houses and hear from people who have lost friends and relatives. One family showed them a dead boy, putting his body on the hood of the mission's car.
Images obtained by The Associated Press from the city in the days leading up to the monitors' visit show army defectors inside a bombed-out building, firing machine guns through gaping holes in a wall.
In another, a huge crowd fills the street for a night-time rally behind a giant banner of the uprising's revolutionary flag. A row of women wear the flags and a large sign overhead reads: "All the doors are closed except your door, God."
There are also photos of wounded civilians lying on a floor in pools of blood, and being treated with crude medical equipment. Another shows an alleyway with blood smeared on a wall and pooled on the ground.
The observers on Thursday will visit Deraa, Hama and Idlib, all cities where anti-Assad demonstrations have been violently repressed.
Opposition activists say the government will play for time and bend the mission to its own ends. But Washington urged them to give Dabi a chance.
"We need let this mission get up and running, let them do their job and then let them give their judgment," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington.
Sniper bullets
Unless it can establish its credibility by proving it has unobstructed access to all areas and is able to hear uncensored accounts, the Arab League mission may not be able to satisfy all sides that it can make an objective assessment of the crisis.
Most of the 5,000 or more people estimated by the United Nations to have been killed in Syria since March have lost their lives in Homs, to machine gun fire, sniper bullets, mortar blasts and tank shelling, or torture.
What began with peaceful mass protests against Assad has turned into an armed insurrection as thousands of army defectors formed the Syrian Free Army and attacked military and police convoys, bases and checkpoints.
A video shot by rebels showed the ambush of a security forces convoy on Wednesday by eight gunmen who opened fire from a rootfop.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four soldiers were killed in the attack by rebel troops on a road near the southern village of Dael in Deraa province, cradle of the revolt.
Assad says he is combating Islamic terrorism steered from abroad. He says more than 2,000 security personnel have been killed.
Syria resisted outside involvement for months but yielded to pressure from fellow members of the 22-state Arab League last month, agreeing to let the monitors in to witness a withdrawal of forces from the turbulent cities.
But the killing did not stop, before and during the first two days of the monitoring mission, and opposition activists predict it will not cease after the observers are gone in a month. About 200 observers will deploy to witness and interview victims of violence scattered across the country of 23 million.
Amateur video appears to show government trucks leaving Homs, Syria following several days of violence. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
The West has demanded that Assad step down but Russia and China oppose intervention. Syria also has the backing of Iran.
Assad, increasingly isolated, has lost the trust of his neighbor Turkey, which has called for him to quit and which allows the rebel army to launch attacks from its territory.
On Wednesday, the government released 755 prisoners following a report by Human Rights Watch accusing authorities of hiding hundreds of detainees from the monitors. It was the second concession in two days.
Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff?contributed to this report.
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