BEIRUT: Syria is keeping troops and heavy weapons in cities “in contravention” of an agreed peace plan, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.
 
And amid reports by activists that scores of people had been killed in the shelling of a district of Hama by government forces, the Arab League at an emergency session circulated a draft statement calling on the U.N. Security Council to protect Syrian civilians under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter.
 
“The secretary-general remains deeply troubled by the continued presence of heavy weapons, military equipment and army personnel in population centers, as reported by United Nations military observers,” Ban’s press office said in a statement.
 
It said Ban considered this a “contravention of the Syrian government’s commitments to withdraw its troops and heavy weapons from these areas” and demanded that Damascus comply with its pledge without delay.
 
The Arab League statement said it would assign its Arab representatives at the U.N. Security Council in the meeting set to take place on May 5 to ask the Council to “protect Syrian civilians immediately in accordance with Chapter Seven of the Security Council charter,” the draft read.
 
Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter allows the Council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.
 
Syria’s main opposition council earlier called for an urgent U.N. meeting after persistent reports of violence, including news that 100 people had been killed by Syrian authorities in central Hama.
 
“We are calling for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council so it can issue a resolution to protect civilians in Syria,” the Syrian National Council said in a statement.
 
At a Security Council briefing Tuesday, U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who brokered the truce, described a lack of compliance as “unacceptable.” Opposition groups have been dismayed by the monitoring team, charging that authorities are resuming violence against civilians in the wake of monitor visits from a team which still numbers only 15 out of an envisaged 300.
 
Opposition groups said districts in Hama came under government bombardment Wednesday following the departure of a U.N. monitoring team to the city, but accounts of casualties varied widely.
 
Accounts of the death toll of a blast that ripped through a building in Hama Wednesday were also conflicting. Syrian state media reported 16 people had died in a bomb attack staged by “terrorists.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization tracking the 13-month-old conflict, gave the same death toll but said the cause of Wednesday afternoon’s blast was not clear.
 
“If we don’t know, we say we don’t know,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the organization. The Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists, said over 50 people had died in the attack, which they said had been a military rocket.
 
At least 40 people were also reportedly killed in the city Monday, including nine activists “summarily executed” after meeting U.N. monitors overseeing the cease-fire, according to a rights group.
 
Observers inspected Thursday the site of Wednesday’s shelling in Hama, said Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi, but there was no word on what they saw.
 
“Hama in recent days, and following a visit by U.N. observers, witnessed a series of crimes ... that left more than 100 people dead and hundreds wounded because of heavy shelling,” the Syrian National Council statement said.
 
In Thursday’s violence, five civilians were killed across the country, according to the Observatory, including one man in an apparent car bombing in Aleppo.
 
The Local Coordinating Committees said 462 people, including 34 children had been killed since the truce came into effect on April 12.
 
Syria, however, countered that accusation by saying it had documented over 1,300 violations perpetrated by “armed terrorist groups” in the same period.
 
“Armed terrorist groups have intensified [the number of] massacres, explosions and acts of aggression, committing more than 1,300 violations since the cease-fire came into force on April 12,” Adnan Mahmoud told AFP.
 
Syria’s ally Russia also weighed in, blaming the ongoing violence on rebel forces and hinted at Al-Qaeda involvement in the revolt against the government.
 
“Opposition groups have essentially reverted to waging wide-scale terror in the region,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
 
Increasingly frustrated Turkey said it was considering all possibilities if the unrest continues and the Council of Europe urged the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Syria. “In the face of developments in Syria, we are taking into consideration any kind of possibility in line with our national security and interests,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told parliament during a briefing to MPs.
 
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution Thursday condemning Assad’s regime and urged the Security Council to implement an embargo on sending weapons to Syria.