Video Shows Attack on U.N. Observers in Syria Video posted online by Syrian activists was said to have been recorded during an attack on Tuesday by government supporters on a convoy of United Nations observers in Syria. CAIRO - As my colleagues Mark Landler and Neil MacFarquhar report, Syrian activists said on Wednesday that rebel forces had pulled out of villages around the besieged northwestern town of Al Heffa. A team of United Nations military observers was prevented from reaching the town on Tuesday by a hostile crowd that struck their vehicles with stones and metal rods, a United Nations spokeswoman said. The crowd, who appeared to be residents of the area, hurled stones and metal rods at the U.N. vehicles. The U.N. observers turned back," the spokeswoman, Sausan Ghosheh, said in a statement posted on the mission's Web site. "As they were leaving the area," she added, "three vehicles heading towards Idlib were fired upon - the source of fire is still unclear." Video, apparently recorded during that attack, was obtained and posted online by opposition activists. Syrian state television blamed the United Nations for the episode, presenting witnesses who claimed that the observers "drove their car rashly," and struck three residents of the area outside Lattakia "while they were trying to explain their suffering due to the acts of the armed terrorist groups." Faced with such denials by the Syrian government over a host of cease-fire violations, the United Nations team in Syria has recently embraced YouTube as a way to report the continuing violence its observers have encountered in the country. Video posted on the observer mission's YouTube channel on Tuesday began with images of the bombardment of an area of Homs the monitors had been unable to reach and showed some of their trip to areas north of the city on Monday. Video posted on YouTube by the United Nations mission in Syria of shelling in the city of Homs on Monday. According to a description of the video from the United Nations media team, after they left Homs, the observers traveled to Talbiseh and Rastan, north of Homs city. The roads were empty and all shops, garages, health centers were closed. The bridge on the highway between Talbiseh and Rastan appeared shelled. A Syrian opposition flag - with three stars - draped from the bridge as the smoke and fire continued to burn. United Nations military observers on patrol to these towns noticed helicopters firing. There was fresh blood on corridors and outside some of the houses.