Activists say the army has repeatedly opened fire on civilians in Homs A group of 50 Arab League observers has begun its mission in Syria to verify compliance with a regional plan to end months of violence.
A team of the observers arrived in the volatile city of Homs, where activists said security forces killed 30 people on Monday.Activists said tanks began to withdraw from Homs early on Tuesday.
The UN says more than 5,000 people have been killed in a crackdown against anti-government protests.
The uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March, inspired by a wave of rebellions across the Arab world.
The Syrian government says it is fighting armed gangs and that hundreds of members of the security forces have been killed as well.
Casualty figures are hard to verify as most foreign media are banned from reporting in Syria.
After Monday's violence, activists said armoured vehicles had pulled out of the Baba Amr district of Homs early on Tuesday.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP news agency that 11 tanks left the district early on Tuesday. Associated Press and Reuters news agencies quoted an activist in the district, Mohamed Saleh, as saying he saw six tanks leaving.
However, the Observatory also said more tanks remained in Baba Amr, hidden inside government buildings, Reuters reported.
The BBC's Jim Muir, in neighbouring Lebanon, says Syrian armed forces have made a show of withdrawing from protest flashpoints in the past, only to return when protests resumed.
Graphic footage Baba Amr and other parts of Homs came under heavy shellfire on Monday. Residents said many buildings had been destroyed and government snipers had made it impossible to search for survivors.
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The mission is getting under way in earnest now. Syria has said it is responsible for the security of the Arab observers, so it remains to be seen how free their access to trouble spots will be.
The head of the Arab League, Nabil al-Arabi, has said it will take about a week to judge whether Syria really is complying with the agreement it signed, under which the observers are to monitor a complete halt to the violence, the withdrawal of armed forces, and the release of all detainees, of whom there are many thousands.
In advance of the observers' arrival, activists accused the authorities of moving detainees onto military bases - where the observers are not allowed to go - and also of removing hundreds of bodies of killed protesters from the morgue at Homs.
Analysis
The head of the Arab League, Nabil al-Arabi, has said it will take about a week to judge whether Syria really is complying with the agreement it signed, under which the observers are to monitor a complete halt to the violence, the withdrawal of armed forces, and the release of all detainees, of whom there are many thousands.
In advance of the observers' arrival, activists accused the authorities of moving detainees onto military bases - where the observers are not allowed to go - and also of removing hundreds of bodies of killed protesters from the morgue at Homs.
Graphic footage purporting to show the aftermath of heavy shelling in Baba Amr has been posted on the internet. It shows the bloodied corpses of four young men and a woman screaming for help from the international community.
The Observatory said 18 people were killed in Baba Amr on Monday and another 11 killed elsewhere in Homs. One woman was killed in nearby Talbisseh, the Observatory said.Large numbers of army deserters are reported to have joined armed rebels in the Free Syrian Army in recent weeks to launch attacks on pro-government troops.
"The violence is definitely two-sided," one Homs resident told Reuters. "I've been seeing ambulances filled with wounded soldiers passing by my window in the past days. They're getting shot somehow."
Freedom of movement The observers' mission is to assess an Arab League initiative agreed with the Syrian government requiring all armed forces to withdraw from areas of conflict.
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Syria deaths
- More than 5,000 civilians have been killed
- UN denied access to Syria
- Information gathered from NGOs, sources in Syria and Syrian nationals who have fled
- The death toll is compiled as a list of names which the UN cross-references
- Vast majority of casualties were unarmed, but the figure may include armed defectors
- Tally does not include serving members of the security forces
Damascus has pledged to allow the monitors full freedom of movement, but they will depend on the regime to provide transport and security.
The head of the mission, Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, said the Syrian authorities were being helpful."I am going to Homs. Till now, they have been very co-operative," AFP quoted Gen Dabi as saying.
The leader of the Syrian National Council (SNC), the main umbrella group of opponents to President Assad, said the observers were "being held prisoners by the Syrian system".
"We ask for the Arab leaders who designed this plan to intervene and make the Syrian regime stop this massacre," he told reporters.
He also called on the UN and European leaders to intervene, saying the League's plan was good but that it did not have the power to enforce it.
Our correspondent in Lebanon says Homs may well prove to be a test case for the observer mission in terms of ascertaining whether they truly have unrestricted access and whether there is any peace for them to monitor.
The observer mission will eventually have up to 200 members, and it plans to meet both government officials and the opposition.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the monitors to back the government's claim that armed gangs were behind the continuing violence.
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