Tagged: Syria

The U.N.-brokered plan to stop the killing in Syria "is unraveling," as guest host Lynn Neary said earlier on Morning Edition.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

LYNN NEARY, HOST:

And I'm Lynn Neary. Renee Montagne is on assignment.

In Syria, a ceasefire that's part of an U.N.-Arab League peace plan is unraveling, just six days after it got underway. Once again, dozens of people are dying each day, as the Syrian military pounds the cities and towns that have most fiercely resisted the government, and opposition rebels are fighting back.

United Nations and Syrian officials are trying to work out details for a U.N. observer mission tasked with monitoring a cease-fire deal reached last week that is aimed at ending months of bloodshed.

But NPR's Grant Clark reports that ongoing violence is raising concerns that the observer mission can go forward as planned. He says the U.N. team is in Syria amid intense military shelling for a fourth day of the opposition stronghold of Homs.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We turn our attention now to Syria. United Nations observers are preparing to travel to Syria this week to start monitoring the fragile cease-fire between government forces and rebel fighters. The U.N. Security Council yesterday approved the deployment of a 30-member team. The monitors will have their work cut out for them. As NPR's Grant Clark reports from Beirut, military bombardment is reportedly continuing, despite an agreed truce.

On Day Two of the fragile ceasefire in Syria, activists say that government forces have fired on some anti-Assad regime demonstrators in various parts of the nation.

Reporting from Beirut, NPR's Grant Clark tells our Newscast Desk that activists say security forces began massing outside mosques during Friday prayers, just before the start of protests.