BEIRUT: In disheartening but wholly unsurprising developments, the Syrian military kept up shelling and raided city centers across the country Tuesday as dim hopes for a desperately needed truce plan faded further.
 
International envoy Kofi Annan, who brokered the deal agreed by Damascus demanding that troops pull out of population centers, implored Syria to halt the violence within another 48-hour deadline while the U.N. Security Council urged the government to take a “fundamental change of course.”
 
“There is no more time to lose,” Annan said in a statement. “We must all push for an end to the bloodshed before Syria plunges into the abyss.”
 
A Security Council statement approved by all 15 members expressed “deep concern” at the Syrian government’s failure to implement the April 10 deadline to withdraw all troops and heavy equipment and demanded the government end hostilities by 6 a.m. Thursday. The Council also echoed Annan’s call to the opposition to fulfill its commitment to halt all violence if the Syrian military does, “and give no excuse for the government to renege on its commitments.”
 
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice added that the Council may soon face a “moment of truth” when it will have to decide whether to increase pressure on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has shown no signs of complying with the Tuesday deadline to withdraw forces from towns and stop using heavy weapons.
 
“The U.S. view is that it is outrageous but by no means unexpected or surprising that the [Syrian] government has yet again made commitments and broken them,” she said
 
Opposition activists said 62 people had been killed by early evening, bringing the week’s toll in the lead-up to the cease-fire to some 1,000 people, according to the main opposition body the Syrian National Council. Among those killed in fighting Tuesday were 19 soldiers, activists claimed.
 
In the southern city of Deraa, activist group the Local Coordination Committees said warplanes and tanks bombarded the city and that security forces had arrested dozens of opposition activists in raids.
 
In Homs, they said 62 people had been killed under heavy shelling, while in Aleppo, activists said regime forces raided university campuses, firing tear gas and arresting students.
 
In the central city of Hama, 20 people were reported killed by the group.
 
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops also raided two southern villages and an activist in the Damascus suburb of Douma told AFP tanks were patrolling the streets, as they have in recent days.
 
Some tanks bore graffiti reading “Assad’s shield,” the activists added.
 
Early claims from Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem that the state was complying with the truce deal were quickly denied by activists on the ground and international powers.
 
In a letter, Annan told the U.N. Security Council the regime had not pulled troops and heavy military equipment out of cities and towns as promised but said there was “still time” to change course and halt all violence by 6 a.m. Thursday.
 
Annan said opposition fighters indicated that they would observe a cease-fire “provided Syrian forces withdraw from cities,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Associated Press.
 
Visiting refugee camps in Turkey’s southern Hatay, a day after Syrian forces allegedly shot and wounded five people, including two Turks in another camp in nearby Gaziantep, he told reporters it was “time the military go back to their barracks.”
 
“I had hoped that by now we would have been much further ahead,” he said.
 
Syrian troops have withdrawn from some areas, but continued to carry out attacks Tuesday, “including the use of heavy weapons on population centers,” he wrote in his letter.
 
Annan also complained that Syria had introduced new truce conditions over the weekend, including seeking written assurances that armed groups were prepared to cease all violence, that these groups disarm immediately and that countries in the area not finance or arm rebel groups. Syria had accepted Annan’s truce plan last week, and introducing new demands was not acceptable, he said.
 
Annan added that he was assured by Russia that Syria no longer sought written guarantees, but sought truce assurances nonetheless.
 
Political options appear to be dwindling should the plan fail. Some opposition groups suggest the matter must return to the U.N. Security Council, where it is unclear whether double veto-wielding Russia and China would support a third attempt at a resolution, while others have expressed fears a further militarization of the opposition rebels could push Syria further toward civil war.
 
Unlike previous peace plans, this one has the backing of Assad allies Russia and China because it did not call for the Syrian leader to step aside ahead of talks on a political transition. Russia and China have shielded Syria from U.N. Security Council condemnation in the past, arguing that only negotiations with the regime offer a way out of the crisis.
 
But even Russia seemed to be losing patience with Assad’s regime, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complaining that Syria’s “efforts to implement the plan could have been more active and resolute.”
 
Lavrov said in a joint news conference with Moallem that he had spoken about it “quite frankly” with Syrian officials.
 
Yet he seemed to place equal blame on the opposition, repeating Russia’s call for the West to pressure rebel fighters to halt violence as well.
 
Lavrov also called for a speedy deployment of international observers – including Russians – in the country. Sending U.N. observers currently posted on the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured by Israel from Syria in 1967, was being discussed, he said.
 
From Turkey, Annan flew to Iran in an apparent attempt to get one of Syria’s main allies to back his peace plan.
 
China meanwhile expressed concern over what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said constituted a border violation by Syria in the Turkish camps, as visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu cut short an official trip in light of the crisis, according to an official report.
 
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin also repeated a call for Syria to honor its commitments of a cease-fire and withdrawal of troops by Tuesday.
 
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero dismissed Syria’s claims of a withdrawal as “a new expression of this flagrant and unacceptable lie.” And British Foreign Secretary William Hague accused Damascus of using the cease-fire deadline “as a cover for intensified military efforts to crush Syria’s opposition.”
 
Syrian opposition leaders said Tuesday they remain committed to the cease-fire despite the continued violence. “Soldiers are not being withdrawn from towns and villages,” said Fadi al-Yassin, an activist in the Idlib province close to Turkey. “On the contrary, reinforcements are being sent.”
 
Syria restricts the access of foreign journalists, and claims about casualties cannot be verified independently. The U.N. has said previously it believes more than 9,000 people have been killed in the 13-month uprising against Assad.