The United Nations on Thursday called an end to its observer mission in Syria, while activists reported more bloodletting in an attack on civilians in the main battleground of Aleppo.
The UN decision was announced as the international community piled the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime to end 17 months of fighting that is now threatening to entangle neighbouring Lebanon.
"The conditions to continue UNSMIS were not fulfilled," France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud said after a New York meeting on the conflict, referring to the mission whose mandate is due to end at midnight Sunday.
Major powers have long been at odds how to end the increasingly brutal battle for Syria, and the withdrawal of the observers follows the collapse of a peace plan drawn up by outgoing peace envoy Kofi Annan.
On the ground, activists reported that Syrian forces shelled a group of people queuing outside a bakery in the eastern Qadi Askar district of Aleppo, the city at the epicentre of the battle between the regime and armed rebels.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people were killed in the district, and that at least 99 had died in violence across the country today, most of them civilians. Yesterday, around 40 people, including women and children, were killed in a massive air strike on civilians in the rebel bastion of Aazaz, just north of Aleppo, according to rights groups and residents.
Human Rights Watch urged the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Syria after the air strike on Aazaz. "Yet again, Syrian government forces attacked with callous disregard for civilian life," it said.
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
