Syrian activists say government troops executed nine who met with UN monitorsSource: NewsCore DAMASCUS, Syria -- Straining a shaky cease-fire even further, Syrian government troops were accused Tuesday of executing nine activists who met with UN military observers to the central city of Hama.The Damascus-based Syrian League for Human Rights said Syrian forces "summarily executed" the activists Monday, AFP reported. One activist said a UN team, in Syria to oversee the 12-day-old cease-fire, revisited Hama Tuesday and met "members of the martyrs' families." "But they did not comply with the families' requests to visit the mass graves where yesterday's dead had been buried," the activist said. The violence in Hama was a reprisal against protesters in the city who took to the streets to welcome the observers, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing residents. On Monday, 54 civilians and five soldiers died in violence across the country, including some 31 in Hama, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Meanwhile, a car bomb rocked central Damascus Tuesday and Syrian state television blamed the blast on "terrorists," the government term for rebels. Three people were reported injured. Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesman for UN envoy Kofi Annan, said Tuesday said the truce was "extremely fragile" and urged President Bashar al Assad's government to fully implement its end of the deal. "This means withdrawal of all heavy armor from population centers," he told UN broadcaster UNTV. "They are claiming that this has happened. Satellite imagery, however, and credible reports show that this has not fully happened, so this is unacceptable." In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said there were "concerns" about the cease-fire monitoring arrangement, including the fact that there were not many monitors and that the observers sometimes could only stay in one place a short time. "And there are concerns," she added, that once they leave, "then violence starts." The fledgling UN mission now has 11 observers out of a planned initial deployment of 30, AFP said. Some 300 more are expected to be deployed beginning next week. The regime has continued shelling restive cities since shortly after the cease-fire went into effect April 12. View Original Article: Syrian activists say government troops executed nine who met with UN monitors
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