BEIRUT — Plainclothes Syrian security agents opened fire at anti-regime protesters near the cars of U.N. monitors in a Damascus suburb on Wednesday, a witness said.
Amateur video showed people ducking for cover as gunshots rang out.
The videos could not be independently confirmed. But the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian security forces fired at protesters in the suburb of Arbeen, wounding eight.
Wednesday’s shooting raised concern for the safety of the monitors.
Under a plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, six observers arrived in Syria over the weekend as an advance team for a larger contingent meant to shore up a week-old cease-fire that has been buckling under regime assaults on opposition strongholds and several bombings and shootings by the rebels.
The truce was supposed to pave the way for talks between President Bashar Assad and the opposition trying to topple him.
Mr. Annan’s spokesman, Ahmad Fazwi, confirmed that the U.N. observers were in Arbeen on Wednesday. He said it would be “appalling” if it was confirmed Syrian forces opened fire in the area.
Mr. Annan’s plan is seen as a last hope for reversing Syria’s slide toward civil war after a 13-month-old uprising to oust Mr. Assad has killed more than 9,000 people, according to the U.N.
Despite persistent violence, the international community is reluctant to declare the cease-fire dead, in part because it is seen as the only way to end bloodshed in Syria.
Other options - such as foreign military intervention, arming Mr. Assad’s opponents and economic sanctions - have been discarded or offer no quick solution.
A deadlocked international community would be hard put to offer an alternative if it were to acknowledge the collapse of the truce.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was expected to send a letter to the U.N. Security Council later on Wednesday to report on Syrian compliance with the truce, something that will help determine whether conditions are right to expand the observer mission.
In Arbeen, residents received word Wednesday that the observer team was en route to their area, said a local activist, who would only give his first name, Ahmed, for fear of repercussions.
He said residents rushed into the streets to meet the observers and then walked alongside the U.N. vehicles.
He said the U.N. cars and the anti-regime protesters were heading toward a downtown area where Assad supporters and plainclothes security agents had taken up positions. Ahmed said that at some points, the agents fired at the protesters.
Amateur video posted online appears to support the narrative.
In one, hundreds of demonstrators are seen crowding around at least three U.N. vehicles, clapping, waving Syrian flags and chanting in support of the rebel Free Syrian Army.
A handwritten sign taped to one of the U.N. cars, apparently by the protesters, reads: “The butcher keeps killing, the observers keep observing and the people keep up the revolution.”
Another video shows hundreds walking along as the two U.N. vehicles slowly make their way through a wide street in Arbeen. When a shot rings out, the two U.N. cars speed away, leaving the demonstrators behind.
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