Syria: Tanks pulled from Homs streets

Syrian opposition activists say the army has begun withdrawing tanks from the restive city of Homs after days of assaults and just as an Arab League observer mission arrives in the country.

Mohammed Saleh says the heavy bombardment of the central city stopped today and tanks were seen pulling out of the streets.

Another Homs-based activist says he saw armoured vehicles leaving early today on a highway that leads to the city of Palmyra to the east.

For days, military forces had pounded Homs with artillery despite agreeing to an Arab League plan to stop the bloodshed.

The Arab monitoring mission is meant to ensure the government complies with the deal to halt the nine-month crackdown.

Opponents of President Bashar Assad, however, doubt that the Arab League can budge the autocratic leader at the head of one of the Middle East's most repressive regimes.

Syria’s top opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun called Sunday for the League to bring the UN Security Council into the effort. The UN says more than 5,000 people have been killed since March in the political violence.

In Cairo, an official at the Arab League’s operations room said the Sudanese head of the mission to Syria, General Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, was leading a team of at least 12 observers on their way to Homs today.

Homs, Syria’s third largest city, has a population of 800,000 and is at the epicentre of the revolt against Assad, located about 100 miles north of the capital, Damascus. Many Syrians refer to Homs as the Capital of the Revolution.

On Monday, security forces killed at least 42 people, most of them in Homs.

“Today is calm, unlike previous days,” Saleh said today. “The shelling went on for days, but yesterday was terrible.”

The Arab League plan agreed to by Assad last week requires the government to remove its security forces and heavy weapons from city streets, start talks with opposition leaders and allow human rights workers and journalists into the country.

Before today’s redeployment of at least some tanks, there had been no sign that Assad was implementing any of the terms, much less letting up on his brutal crackdown.