AFP Live Blog

More details are now coming in from the AFP news agency on the reports of violence in Syria's north this morning.

"At least one civilian was killed and eight injured by gunfire and shells during a military offensive launched this morning in Hass village" in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based rights group said.

Troops set ablaze the houses of eight people who had fled and arrested  dozens of people in the village, it added.

Two other Idlib villages, Deir Subol and Farkia, were also targeted by Syrian troops in an operation in which a 16-year-old teenager was killed and three people injured, the Observatory said.

Also Monday, a civilian was killed in an explosion in the northern city of Aleppo while in central Homs city, one of the main targets of the regime's year-long crackdown, heavy machinegun fire was heard early morning in the Hamidiyeh neighbourhood, it said. 

[AFP]

US Secretary of State Clinton says Syria's reported acceptance of Annan's peace plan  must be matched by "immediate actions" like halting gunfire.

Clinton told reporters that Washington hopes that Assad will "make good" on his commitment to Annan's six-point plan to end the violence but warned of his history of "over-promising."

[AFP]

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed in violence linked to a year-long anti-regime uprising in Syria, the overwhelming majority of them civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said just announced.

A total 9,734 people have died, including 7,056 civilians, the Britain-based group said.

It said the remaining casualties were soldiers and rebel troops. 

[AFP]

Syrian troops have surrounded Taftanaz and opened fire on rebels in the town on Wednesday as they pushed to mop up insurgent positions in northwestern Idlib province, rebel sources have told the AFP news agency.

They were firing on cars leaving the town of 8,000, which hosts the most important military helicopter base in northern Syria, effectively cutting off all escape routes, said a member of the Free Syrian Army.

There was intense fighting around the base for several hours before FSA fighters found themselves outnumbered and withdrew.

Rebel fortunes have deteriorated in the area over the past 24 hours after government troops followed a three-day siege of the nearby town of Neirab Sermin by storming and taking it. 

Neirab Sermin and Taftanaz are on a highway leading from the city of Idlib, which was taken by the army on March 14, to the major commercial hub of Aleppo to the northeast.

The rebels say they believe the next target is the town of Binesh, which lies about 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Taftanaz.

FSA sources said they have several hundred fighters in the area, and that  they are building trenches and laying explosives along the road in hopes of delaying the inevitable assault on Binesh.

[AFP]