BEIRUT — Syrian forces opened fire across two tense borders Monday, killing a TV journalist in Lebanon and at least two people in a refugee camp in Turkey on the eve of a deadline for a cease-fire plan that seems all but certain to fail.
Across Syria, activists reported particularly heavy violence with more than 125 people killed in the past two days.
The Obama administration expressed anger at the violence spilling over the frontiers, saying the Syrian government appeared to have little commitment to the peace plan that was negotiated by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.
The latest bloodshed was a sign of how easily Syria’s neighbors could be drawn into a regional conflagration as President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on a year-old uprising becomes increasingly militarized despite desperate diplomatic efforts.
Annan brokered a deal that was supposed to begin with Syria pulling its troops out of population centers by this morning, with a full cease-fire by both sides within 48 hours. But hopes for the plan collapsed after a fresh wave of violence and new demands by the regime for written guarantees that the opposition will lay down arms first.
Naci Koru, Turkey’s deputy foreign minister, said today’s deadline for the withdrawal has become “void at this stage,” state-run TRT television reported.
The U.N. estimates some 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, when the uprising began with mostly peaceful protests against Assad. But a government crackdown led many Syrians to take up weapons, transforming the conflict into an insurgency.
On Monday, Syrian forces fired across the border into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding at least six people, Turkish authorities said. But four witnesses in the camp told The Associated Press that two people in the camp also had been shot and killed.
One of the witnesses, Tareq Abdul-Haqq, said he saw two refugees killed in front of him.
He said the two were in a crowd that was shouting anti-Assad slogans during a demonstration that erupted after word got through the camp that rebels had ambushed the Syrian checkpoint.
The soldiers were believed to be firing at rebels who tried to escape to the refugee camp after ambushing a Syrian military checkpoint, killing six soldiers, according to the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Turkish authorities said four Syrians and two Turks were wounded, including a Turkish translator who had entered the camp to try to calm an anti-Assad protest.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also reported two deaths, but under different circumstances.
According to the ministry, 21 wounded Syrians were brought to Turkey on Monday, but two of them died soon after. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two accounts.
A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Syria’s ranking diplomat had been summoned and given a harsh message about Turkey’s “irritation” with the episode.There was no immediate comment from Syria.
“Syrian citizens who have fled the violence by the current Syrian regime are under the full protection of Turkey,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Turkey shelters some 24,000 Syrian refugees, including hundreds of army defectors, and has floated the idea of setting up a buffer zone inside Syria if the flow of displaced people across its border becomes overwhelming.
Turkey has built several camps in its southern provinces along the 550-mile border with Syria. Just last week, more than 2,800 Syrians entered Turkey within the space of two days, and a further 700 arrived Saturday, according to Turkish accounts.
Monday’s shooting was believed to be the first inside Turkey, although there have been similar cross-border attacks into Lebanon.
Syrian troops fired about 40 rounds across the border into northern Lebanon, killing a cameraman for Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television station, the station said. The camera crew were in Lebanese territory.
Ali Shaaban, who was born in 1980, was shot through the chest as he sat in a car and died on the way to the hospital, Lebanese security officials said.
Shaaban is at least the ninth journalist killed while covering the conflict in Syria.
The Obama administration condemned the cross-border attacks.
“We certainly have seen no signs yet of the Assad regime abiding by its commitments,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
“We strongly condemn any attack by the Syrian regime on refugees in bordering countries and were absolutely outraged by today’s report,” State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said. “We join the Turkish government in calling for the Syrian regime to immediately cease fire.”
“Not only has the violence not abated, it has been worse in recent days,” she said.
Annan, an envoy to Syria for the U.N. and the Arab League, has tried to broker a cease-fire that would pave the way for talks to end the crisis. But the Assad regime introduced a new, last-minute demand Sunday, saying it cannot withdraw without written guarantees from opposition fighters that they will lay down their arms.
Syria’s main rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, rejected the demand for a written guarantee, but said it will abide by its promise under Annan’s plan to stop fighting - as long as the regime does, too.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the current Security Council president, told CNN that the Annan plan is “the last viable chance for there to be a negotiated settlement.”
Annan is scheduled to visit at least one refugee camp in Turkey’s Hatay province, bordering Syria, today, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said.
Two U.S. senators, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., who were visiting Turkey to confer with members of the Syrian National Council, the leading exile opposition group, also planned to visit a camp in Hatay today, an official at the U.S. Embassy said. Both senators have been outspoken in calling for more action to help anti-Assad elements in Syria.
Iran, Russia and China have been Assad’s strongest supporters. Annan already has traveled to Moscow and Beijing and got their backing for his peace plan.
Despite the diplomatic push, violence has continued.
The Observatory and other activists said more than 125 people were killed since Sunday in the Syrian cities of Homs, Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and elsewhere. The reports could not be verified because Syria has banned most independent media coverage.
EGYPT
Hosni Mubarak’s former vice president and spy chief said in comments published Monday that he would not attempt to “reinvent” the regime of his longtime mentor if he is elected president of Egypt.
Omar Suleiman, who is running in the presidential elections slated for May 23-24, told the state-owned Al-Akhbar daily that restoring security would be his top priority as president. Next on his list would be to revive the country’s faltering economy, social justice and reinforcing freedom and democracy.
Militants on Monday blew up a gas pipeline in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that transports fuel to neighboring Israel and Jordan, a senior Egyptian security official said.
Northern Sinai security chief Maj. Gen. Saleh al-Masri said Monday’s blast hit a section of the pipeline outside the city of el-Arish but did not cause major damage or a fire since the gas flow had been cut after a blast on the pipeline last month.
TUNISIA
Police used tear gas and truncheons to disperse some 2,000 protesters seeking to march Monday along the Tunisian capital’s main boulevard despite a ban on demonstrations there. Some of the protesters hurled bricks in response.
Bourguiba Avenue has been the main site for protests since Tunisians overthrew their longtime dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a year ago. But last week, authorities barred marches along the thoroughfare because of what they described as threats to “public order.”
The ban followed weeks of rival demonstrations between groups calling for and against the implementation of Islamic law in the Arab country, which was staunchly secular under the former regime but now has a moderate Islamist party leading the government.
LIBYA
Moammar Gadhafi’s son and former heir apparent Seif al-Islam will be put on trial inside Libya, and there will be a verdict before mid-June, a Libyan official said Monday.
The decision comes despite appeals by rights groups to Libyan authorities to hand him over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague because of fears that he may not get a fair trial in Libya.
Information for this article was contributed by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Andrea Glioti, Mehmet Guzel, Selcan Hacaoglu, Suzan Fraser, Zeina Karam, Karin Laub, Matthew Lee, Hamza Hendawi, Sarah El Deeb, Ashraf Sweilam, Bouazza Ben Bouazza and Rami al-Shaheibi of The Associated Press; and by Sebnem Arsu, Alan Cowell, Neil MacFarquhar and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/10/2012