Syrian army storms eastern city The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) report shootings in Homs, including heavy gunfire from machine guns fixed onto vehicles in Khaldieh neighbourhood.The LCC also says there\'s been a brief demonstration near the President Bridge in the heart of Damascus, near the Four Seasons Hotel. They say security forces detained several protesters.
A Western diplomat, commenting on the UN humanitarian mission currently deployed to Syria, has told Al Jazeera:
There are grave misgivings in the UN delegation about continuing with this mission when the Syrian authorities move in after they leave a location and shoot dead those attempting to testify. \"Far from uncovering crimes against humanity, this UN mission is provoking the Assad regime into committing them. A whitewash became a fiasco and that fiasco has now turned into a murderous road show.\"
A UN human rights expert said that Arab nations have agreed to demand that Syria allows an international probe within its borders to see whether crimes against humanity have beencommitted, AP reports. Jean Ziegler, a member of the UN Human Rights Council\'s advisory committee, says Kuwait will make the demand on behalf of Arab nations at the start of the council\'s special session on Monday. Ziegler said the 47-nation council is likely to agree to an investigation. President Assad must step down because he is as \"irrelevant\" to the future of his country as Gaddafi is in Libya, Britain\'s deputy prime minister says.
Nick Clegg dismissed the TV interview Assad gave on Sunday:
\"In Syria... a single family continues to wage war on an entire nation,\" AFP quoted Clegg as saying in a speech.
\"Yesterday we heard him wheel out the same, well-worn promises of reform. We take no reassurance from that.
\"This is a man who has lied endlessly, broken his promises repeatedly, hurt his own people and now his time is up.\"
\"He is as irrelevant to Syria\'s future as Gaddafi is to Libya\'s.\"
Syria has promised to end its draconian decades-old emergency laws, but government forces continue to crack down on the opposition and the unprecedented pro-democracy protests that have erupted across the country. Rights groups say more than a thousand people have been killed in the unrest, while thousands more have flooded into neighbouring Turkey.  A UN humanitarian mission has been visiting Homs today. Hundreds of anti-government protesters gathered in what they now call \"Freedom Square\", chanting for the toppling of the regime as the cars arrived. However, the Local Co-ordination Committees say two people were killed after the UN mission left Homs:
\"Fareed Rafat Akhwan and another person of the Breiman family were killed and many were injured when security forces and snipers opened random fire on protesters that were flocking to Sa\'a [Clock] Square to welcome the UN fact finding delegation. When the delegation left, security forces opened fire on civilians.
\"One of those injured by the bullets of the security forces near Sa\'a Square were taken to a hospital in a car of the United Nations.\"
Meanwhile, Dr. Ammar al-Qurabi, executive director of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said that “We will not fall until Syria is finished” is the implied message in the recent speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“The Syrian president gave one year for reforms to come to effect. If the regime goes on with this pace, the Syrian people will have been exterminated by then,” Dr. Qurabi told Al Arabiya’s program Panorama. Dr. Qurabi added that, so far, Mr. Assad has responded to demands that he step down with more violence and escalation.
“It is as if he is telling the whole world, ‘It’s either me or chaos and destruction.’”
Former Jordanian Information Minister Saleh al-Qallab also told Al Arabiya in the same program that Syria has been living under a repressive regime for 50 years, ever since the Baath Party came to power.
“Those years saw the destruction of Syria’s values and the deterioration of its relationship with its neighbors, as well as the suppression of its own people,” he said.
Mr. Qallab added that the Syrian president’s stance is quite exceptional, since heads of state do not normally talk scornfully about the international community and the entire world.
“He did that even though he knows that the United States has an influence on China and Russia and many other countries.”
Mr. Qallab said that the UN Security Council is capable of putting an end to this regime and despite that, Assad behaves as if he does not care. “He talks about the Security Council like Hassan Nasrallah does, as if the whole world is worth nothing at all.”