Cease Fire

Yemen today called for a cease-fire with Shiite Muslim rebels in its northwest mountains, where tens of thousands of refugees have fled in recent weeks and international humanitarian organizations have condemned rising civilian casualties. The rebels rejected a similar government cease-fire several weeks ago, and accusations quickly emerged today that both sides were violating the truce. International alarm over the fighting, the latest spasm in a five-year insurgency, deepened Thursday when Yemeni airstrikes near killed 87 people, many of them women, children and the elderly.

BEIRUT — Violence in Syria has continued amid a cease-fire, increasing concern that the country is descending into a civil war that could have frightening implications beyond its border, United Nations envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council on Tuesday. The U.N.-backed peace plan, meant to end the bloodshed of a 14-month antigovernment uprising, remains the only chance to stabilize the country, Annan said. "If it fails … and it were to lead into a civil war, it will not affect only Syria, it will have an impact on the whole region," he said at a news conference in Geneva after his briefing.

BEIRUT -- Clashes and shelling were reported across Syria on Friday, even as the former secretary-general of the United Nations said he expected an immediate cease-fire by President Bashar Assad's forces. At least 45 people were killed nationwide in the violence, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a coalition of opposition activist groups. The killings, including 14 in the northeast city of Dair Alzour and 12 in the central city of Homs, took place amid large protests across the country by activists demanding action in the Arab world in support of their cause.

BEIRUT - More than a year after the uprising began, only 50 people were still around to protest in a Syrian town of burned buildings and pockmarked storefronts. But for the residents of Anadan who came together to call for freedom and dignity on the morningSyria'scease-fire began last month, it was as though the revolution had begun again. "We were willing to come out like it was our first day," said Abu Ghaith, an activist in the town near Aleppo that rebels seized and lost again to government forces.

BEIRUT - More than a year after the uprising began, only 50 people were still around to protest in a Syrian town of burned buildings and pockmarked storefronts. But for the residents of Anadan who came together to call for freedom and dignity on the morningSyria'scease-fire began last month, it was as though the revolution had begun again. "We were willing to come out like it was our first day," said Abu Ghaith, an activist in the town near Aleppo that rebels seized and lost again to government forces.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi's regime brusquely swatted down a truce offered by rebels Friday and continued to pummel opposition positions in both the eastern and western sections of the country. After rebels had refused for weeks to negotiate with Kadafi's government, the leader of the opposition's national council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, offered a cease-fire if Kadafi agreed to withdraw his forces from besieged Libyan cities and permitted peaceful protests. But Musa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the regime, dismissed the offer as a trick.

BEIRUT - Just hours into a cease-fire between the Syrian government and the opposition, the truce was already on shaky ground as more than a dozen people were reported killed and there was no sign that government tanks and heavy weapons had been withdrawn from contested areas. A draft resolution for a United Nations advance monitoring mission could be voted on as early as Friday in an effort to end unrest in the 13-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Diplomats who met Thursday said a force as large as 200 could eventually be sent to Syria if both sides pledge to honor the peace plan.

At a time when movies are turning Vietnam into a fantasy of daredevil POW rescue missions, "Cease Fire" (at the Beverly Center Cineplex) brings home the reality of the war as a lingering nightmare for the men who fought it. An unpretentious, low-budget debut feature made by a pair of University of Miami film school alums, "Cease Fire" is a work of determined simplicity, unswerving in focus and purpose. Don't be surprised if you find your eyes misting over at its finish.

BEIRUT - Two days into a fragile truce, and the question many are asking is, when is a cease-fire no longer a cease-fire? On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's 13-month uprising, mass protests returned to the streets and in some places were met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. In other towns, soldiers and security forces stationed nearby allowed protesters to gather, but the very presence of armed government forces was a violation of the plan.

The United States and allied governments seeking the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad were expected to exert new pressure Friday on Syrian authorities to agree to a cease-fire and allow humanitarian aid into besieged areas such as the battered central city of Homs. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the many diplomats scheduled to arrive Friday in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, with a goal of turning up the heat on Assad's government. "We've got to find ways to get food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance in to those affected by violence," Clinton said Thursday in London, where she and other diplomats discussed Syria, among other issues.

BEIRUT - Two weeks after a supposed cease-fire was meant to bring an end to violence in Syria, an explosion Friday ripped through the capital, Damascus, killing at least nine people and injuring almost 30. A suicide bomber in the pro-opposition Midan neighborhood detonated an explosives belt near a school and the Zein Abidin mosque as worshipers were leaving Friday prayers, the Interior Ministry said. Those killed included civilians and law enforcement officers, state media said.

BEIRUT - The United Nations Security Council on Saturday authorized a full monitoring mission of up to 300 observers in Syria as the advance team visited the battered central city of Homs for the first time. Opposition activists said the bombardment of Homs, which has been shelled almost continuously for nearly three months, stopped before the monitors toured one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, Khaldiyeh. State media reported that the team also toured the city's devastated opposition stronghold of Baba Amr, but activists could not confirm the visit.

BEIRUT - Syria and the United Nations reached a preliminary agreement Thursday on a monitoring mission to supervise a shaky cease-fire, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the government of President Bashar Assad for failing to uphold the truce. "Despite the government's agreement to cease all violence, we still see deeply troubling evidence that it continues," Ban said at a news conference in New York. Since the cease-fire began a week ago, government forces have continued to shell cities and towns and open fire on protesters, and some rebel groups are fighting back as an uprising that has racked Syria for 13 months showed no sign of ending.

BEIRUT — Six United Nations observers arrived in the capital of Syria on Sunday night to begin monitoring a cease-fire even as violence continued in parts of the country, further fraying the peace plan. "They've arrived and they will start work tomorrow morning," Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping department, told Agence France-Presse news agency. The monitors are part of an advance team whose task is to ensure the implementation of a six-point peace plan designed to end fighting and a brutal government crackdown in Syria's 13-month uprising.

BEIRUT - As the cease-fire in Syria appeared to be unraveling, the U.N. Security Council on Saturday unanimously approved sending as many as 30 unarmed monitors to try to help maintain the fragile truce. Activists reported almost 30 deaths across Syria on a day when the international community sent a rare message of unity that the violence must come to an end. The bloodshed has been intensifying as rebels have increasingly taken up arms in the face of a yearlong crackdown by the government of President Bashar Assad.

BEIRUT - Two days into a fragile truce, and the question many are asking is, when is a cease-fire no longer a cease-fire? On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's 13-month uprising, mass protests returned to the streets and in some places were met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. In other towns, soldiers and security forces stationed nearby allowed protesters to gather, but the very presence of armed government forces was a violation of the plan.

Yemen's capital and other cities again erupted into violent chaos Tuesday after a cease-fire collapsed between forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and tribal fighters, who seized at least four government buildings. The heavy fighting in Sana began late Monday evening as Saleh's Republican Guard troops and supporters of his rival tribal chief Sadiq Ahmar pounded each other in fresh clashes. Mortar-shell explosions and gunfire ripped the air early Tuesday. South of Sana, security forces opened fire on demonstrators in the city of Taiz, bringing the death toll there since Sunday to 50, according to reports received by the United Nations.

BEIRUT - Just hours into a cease-fire between the Syrian government and the opposition, the truce was already on shaky ground as more than a dozen people were reported killed and there was no sign that government tanks and heavy weapons had been withdrawn from contested areas. A draft resolution for a United Nations advance monitoring mission could be voted on as early as Friday in an effort to end unrest in the 13-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Diplomats who met Thursday said a force as large as 200 could eventually be sent to Syria if both sides pledge to honor the peace plan.

Prospects for a cease-fire in Syria further dimmed Monday when fighting spilled over the border into Turkey and Lebanon, leaving at least three people dead, opposition activists said. An additional 160 people were killed within Syria, activists said, as forces loyal to embattled President Bashar Assad continued to shell buildings and shoot at residents of rebellious cities on the eve of a proposed halt to the hostilities. Government troops and tanks were due to be withdrawn Tuesday from cities and towns, but that seemed increasingly unlikely as the violence has only escalated in the last week and on Sunday the Assad government demanded written guarantees from all opposition groups, a proposal that the rebel Free Syrian Army dismissed.