The flare-up in violence comes ahead of the arrival of a United Nations advance team to Damascus, that will be trying to broker a deal to deploy observers to monitor a ceasefire plan agreed by the government. Annan says the government must complete its obligations to cease violence by 10 April and then the oppostion must cease all violence by 6am Damascus time on 12 April. Syria has told U.N. officials that it is withdrawing troops from the southern province of Daraa, the northwestern province of Idlib and the rebel-controlled mountain resort town of Zabadani, north of Damascus, Fawzi said. In neighboring Idlib province, a rebel was shot dead by snipers and three civilians were injured by random gunfire in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, it added. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 The United Nations expects a ceasfire between Syrian troops and opposition forces to be in place no later than April 12, a spokesman for the U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan said Thursday, as activists reported a fierce attack by government troops on a Damascus suburb. • The deadline for a ceasefire under Annan's peace plan, originally set for 10 April, has effectively been extended until 12 April, after the envoy's spokesman said both parties would have 48 hours from that date to end hostilities. Four soldiers were killed and several civilians were reported wounded, it said. "The loudspeakers at local mosques called for members of the regime army to defect and come into the towns," the group said, citing information from its network of activists inside Syria. Activists, meanwhile, said Syrian troops were attacking a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, in what they described as one of the most violent campaigns since the year-old uprising began. Explosions and heavy machinegun fire rocked Douma, just 12 kilometres (8 miles) from the seat of government, activists from the Revolutionary Council of the Damascus Countryside said. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says troops are clashing with rebel army defectors in the northern towns of Hraytan and Anadan near Aleppo.The Observatory also reported fighting in the Damascus suburb of Douma and the southern village of Kfar Shams.
– Fierce clashes continue to erupt in Syria, even as the UN's deadline for a ceasefire looms a week from today. Kofi Annan's peace plan requires Syrian troops to withdraw from towns and cities by April 10, and the UN expects both sides to stop fighting within two days afterward, the AP reports. A UN team will arrive in the country today to discuss the deployment of observers who will monitor the ceasefire plan, the Guardian adds. Even so, activists report fighting in several areas today, Reuters notes, including government troops reportedly staging one of the most violent attacks so far on a Damascus suburb. One activist group says at least 27 have been killed today. But Syrian officials tell Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy, that troops are already beginning to withdraw from Daraa, Idlib, and Zabadani.