UN OBSERVERS TO SUSPEND OPERATIONS IN 'HIGH RISK SITUATION'

(16 Jun 2012) UN observers in Syria suspended their work on Saturday because of escalating violence in the country, the strongest sign yet that an international peace plan for the country is disintegrating.
Major General Robert Mood, the head of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), said rising bloodshed over the past 10 days was posing significant risks to the lives of the some 300 observers and was impeding their ability to carry out their mandate.
The observers were sent to Syria after international envoy Kofi Annan brokered a peace plan that included a cease-fire that was supposed to take effect on April 12.
But both sides have continued to stage daily attacks and the observers themselves have been caught up in the violence on several occasions.
"U.N. observers will not be conducting patrols and will stay in their locations until further notice," Mood said in a statement Saturday.
He said the observers will not leave Syria and the suspension will be reviewed on a daily basis.
"Operations will resume when we see the situation fit for us to carry out our mandated activities," he added.
Syrian deputy foreign minister Ahmad Arnous was also seen arriving at the hotel where Mood read out his statement on Saturday.
The Syrian government said it conveyed to Mood its "understanding" of the decision taken and blamed the rebels, whom it refers to as "terrorists" for the escalation.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had "clarified to the leadership of the UN mission that armed terrorist groups have conducted, since the signing of the Annan plan, an increase in criminal operations that have targeted, many times, the observers, and threatened their lives."
The opposition, for its part, has blamed the regime for the attacks near the observers.
The observers have been tasked with monitoring the cease-fire and supporting the full implementation of Annan's six-point plan, which was supposed to lead to talks between the sides.
Last week, an observers' convoy was blocked and attacked as it was trying to head to the town of Haffa in the coastal Latakia region, where troops had been battling rebels for a week.
The observers only managed to get in once government troops had seized the area back from the rebels.
On May 15, a roadside bomb damaged observers' cars shortly after they met with Syrian rebels in the northern town of Khan Sheikoun.
A week earlier, a roadside bomb struck a Syrian military truck in the south of the country just seconds after Mood drove by in a convoy.
Activists say some 14-thousand people have been killed in the conflict.


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