Q&A: Can the World Count on the U.N. to Fight ISIS Terrorists?

Q&A: CAN THE WORLD COUNT ON THE U.N. TO FIGHT ISIS TERRORISTS?

Top officials for the United Nations last week announced the terrorist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, committed crimes against humanity “on an unimaginable scale.” On Monday, the international organization followed up by sending a fact-finding team to Iraq to investigate these claims.

Whether the U.N. will act on its findings is yet to be seen.

U.N. expert Brett D. Schaefer, who is the Jay Kingham senior research fellow in international regulatory affairs at The Heritage Foundation, argues that the United States must be “realistic” in dealings with the organization.

What that means, he explains, is “supporting it where U.S. interests can be advanced while being unafraid to explore alternative options when it proves unproductive.”

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal, Schaefer, editor of the 2009 book “ConUNdrum,” assesses the U.N.’s report on ISIS, sharing where he thinks the organization will help – or hinder – America’s fight against the terrorist threat. In some cases, he says, America must act alone.

>>> Commentary: 11 Reasons Why ISIS Might Be More Dangerous Than al-Qaeda

Q: The United Nations just put out a report stating ISIS, or the Islamic State, has committed crimes against humanity in Iraq and Syria. What does the U.N. mean and why did it take so long for the world body to respond to an international crisis?

A: Crimes against humanity are serious crimes – murder, slavery, torture, rape, etc. – committed against a civilian population in a widespread and/or organized manner. The first notable definition was codified under the Nuremberg trials after World War II. The U.N. report accuses ISIS of torture, murder, acts tantamount to enforced disappearance, and forcible displacement of a civilian population committed at a scale rising to crimes against humanity.

The report is the eighth report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, which was established in August 2011. Thus, the U.N. actually has been paying attention to events in Syria for quite some time.

However, it is important to note that the U.N. report was not initiated in response to ISIS, but as an inquiry into “alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011 in the Syrian Arab Republic.” Although ISIS has existed for over a decade in various iterations, it first became really prominent as a concern only a couple of years ago.

The crimes of ISIS have been included in the report because they have been committed, in part, in Syria, and fall under the mandate of the commission. It is fortunate that an existing inquiry was underway that could look into ISIS acts in Syria. In response to ISIS actions in Iraq, the Human Rights Council voted to send a fact-finding team, which is expected to report back in March 2015. This will complement the work of the commission.

Q: What is your assessment of the recommendations in the U.N. report?

A: For the most part they are non-controversial. Calls for sustaining funding for humanitarian efforts, for instance, are justified and are consistent with current actions of the U.S. and other nations.

In many cases, however, they are unlikely to be realized. For example, there are a number of pleas for improved behavior by the combatants, e.g. to respect and comply with human rights and international humanitarian law, reject violence and respect freedom of religion, to cease using illegal and indiscriminate weapons, and to allow access to the country by the commissioners, human rights monitors and humanitarian workers.

Obviously, these outcomes would be good. But experience over the past few years, with repeated willful violation of these principles by multiple combatants, provides little reason to believe that such appeals will be successful.

Q: Would following these recommendations counter the threat of ISIS? How much action would the U.S. be required to take unilaterally?

A: The commission calls on the international community to enact an arms embargo and on the U.N. Security Council to “enhance the enforcement and implementation of international human rights and humanitarian law through the range of powers and measures at its disposal.”

The Security Council passed resolution 2170 on Aug. 15, which condemns terrorist acts committed by ISIS and its indiscriminate killing and deliberate targeting of civilians and other atrocities; calls for those committing crimes to be held accountable; and applies an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo “to ISIL [or ISIS], ANF, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaida.”

The resolution also demands that ISIS cease all violence and terrorist acts; demands that foreign fighters supporting ISIS withdraw; and calls on states to impede the movement of individuals seeking to join ISIS, block transfer of financing, supplies and arms to ISIS, and observe sanctions to six specified individuals linked with ISIS.

ISIS has little interest in entering the international community, and moral appeals and ostracization will a have minimal impact. Although it has a part to play, the U.N. lacks the capacity and means to back and impose its demands, and relies on its member states to support, implement and enforce them.

The U.N. doesn’t have its own army – the member states must provide troops tor peacekeeping – and, regardless, U.N. peacekeepers have proven to be poor war fighters historically. Compliance with Security Council resolutions can be haphazard among nations, either from disagreement or limited capabilities. Few countries outside the U.S. are willing or capable of taking military action to deter ISIS.

Q: When it comes down to it, if the U.N. does want to act, is it correct that a country such as Russia or China could block action because it’s a Security Council decision? How does that work?

A: Under the U.N. Charter, the Security Council can adopt a resolution that is, in theory, binding on all member states. However, it is not uncommon for countries to ignore or only partially comply with resolutions.

There are 15 members of the Security Council. Ten members are elected by the General Assembly. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (the victorious allies of World War II) are permanent members of the Security Council.

A resolution can pass the Security Council with nine positive votes. However, each of the permanent members of the Security Council possesses a veto and can unilaterally block any resolution.

Q: What is the point of the U.N. if it can’t or doesn’t act during such a crisis?

The United Nations was created to maintain international peace and security, promote self-determination and basic human rights, and protect fundamental freedoms. Regrettably, the U.N. has produced more disappointment than success in realizing these high aspirations. A great deal of the blame for this failure is due to divergent interests among the member states that have prevented the organization from taking decisive, timely action.

However, the U.N. can serve a valuable purpose as a forum where nations can debate shared concerns and collaborate on joint efforts to address them and some initiatives, like peacekeeping missions, are often more politically acceptable as a U.N. operation than they would be otherwise.

The United States must be realistic in its dealings with the U.N. and have a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, supporting it where U.S. interests can be advanced while being unafraid to explore alternative options when it proves unproductive.

Q: Is there anything in this situation that the U.N. is uniquely qualified to address?

A: The U.N. inquiry does provide, in this instance, an objective assessment of the situation in Syria, and its condemnation of the actions of the Syrian government and ISIS is useful. The U.N. is also an important vehicle for providing humanitarian assistance.

Because nearly every nation is a member of the U.N., the organization can be uniquely helpful in mobilizing resources and conveying assistance. If, for instance, the U.S. tried to provide assistance directly, its efforts would be viewed as partisan by some combatants and its citizens would be targets. While not immune – U.N. workers are occasionally targeted – they are typically seen as neutral actors.

Q: What’s the question here about the U.N. that isn’t being asked or understood?

Although the U.N. frequently condemns terrorism, as it did in resolution 2170, it is important to understand that the U.N. has never agreed on a definition of terrorism.

The main impediment is that Muslim countries insist, as stated in the 1998 Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism: “All cases of struggle by whatever means, including armed struggle, against foreign occupation and aggression for liberation and self-determination, in accordance with the principles of international law, shall not be regarded as [a terrorism] offense.”

In other words, Palestinian acts of terrorism against Israel must be excluded. The failure to define terrorism inhibits U.N. efforts to combat it.

UN Peacekeeping Why not in Syria and Iraq?

UN Peacekeeping Why not in Syria and Iraq?

"Do you see UN Peacekeeping as a viable option to help solve the humanitarian crises in Syria and Iraq?” I asked Hervé Ladsous, the United Nations Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations. Couldn’t UN Peacekeepers help remedy the enormous humanitarian dilemma that has resulted from these two crises with millions now suffering from a shortage of food and clean water?

“The answer to your question is no,” stated Mr. Ladsous, without even the slightest hesitation. “We wish we could help the people suffering, but the magnitude of the two crises is simply much too large for the UN to handle.” It was at that point I found myself disagreeing with one of the world’s leaders in peacekeeping. For if we wish to help solve two of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, UN Peacekeepers must be involved.

They must be involved because they are undoubtedly the best and most well-trained peacekeeping group in the entire world. They are experts at delivering supplies to those who need them, and quickly. They are adept at helping to mend differences between ethnic groups, often healing situations that many had previously thought were beyond repair. They remain 100 percent committed to their missions no matter the circumstance--some even paying the ultimate price in a concerted effort to help make the world a better place.

Now, I understand that some of you may be looking at me sideways at this point, and are thinking of the various studies that have recently come out declaring that UN Peacekeeping is only marginally effective, if that. You probably want an answer for some of the UN Peacekeeping’s failures--like the Rwanda catastrophe in 1994 or Kosovo’s bloody civil war in 1999, and you deserve one.

And yet, I insist that UN Peacekeepers must go in to Syria and Iraq. They ought to be deployed to those countries in mass numbers, as soon as humanly possible. This is because although UN Peacekeeping may have made major mistakes in the past, these mistakes actually have little to do with the effectiveness of UN peacekeepers—and much more to do with a severe lack of funding and support.

Take for instance Rwanda. France, the UK, and the US all used their influence to prevent reinforcement peacekeepers from being sent in only a few weeks after the killings had begun. They also refused to label the mass killings occurring as “genocide," thereby ruling out the possibility of any kind of humanitarian military intervention. Additionally, Belgian peacekeepers, which made up a large portion of the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda, were pulled out of the conflict shortly after it had begun. Furthermore, the remaining peacekeepers had been given orders by the UN not to fire unless fired upon--even if a civilian’s life was at risk.

With adequate funding and support, however, the UN has recently enjoyed a number of successful missions in the last decade. A recent UN Peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)  has helped to reduce the number of internally displaced persons by 77% and has trained over 5,000 Haitian police officers, according to the Better World Campaign. In April, a UN Peacekeeping mission ended in Côte d'Ivoire, which was incredibly successful in helping to resolve the country’s conflicts and build up its infrastructure and government; Côte d'Ivoire’s economy has grown more than 8.5% in the last year and is scheduled to have its first democratic election in years in 2015.

UN Peacekeeping missions, with adequate funding and support, would undoubtedly provide much-needed assistance to the millions of refugees of the crises in Iraq and Syria. They would enable millions of people to get the food, water and resources they would need to survive while their respective countries seek to safely resolve the ongoing conflicts. And, while they might not be able to fully solve two of the most intractable conflicts on earth, they would certainly make an impact.

Can NATO guarantee peace in the Middle East?

    CAN NATO GUARANTEE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ?

Odds are extremely slim that a NATO peacekeeping force will be able to guarantee Israeli security.

The recent round of terrorist attacks from Gaza again begs the question of whether Israel can rely on international (NATO) forces, as was proposed for areas in the West Bank. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s insistence that there not be Israeli security forces in the Jordan Valley is unviable as the proposal falls far short of Israel’s primary responsibility of protecting the nation’s citizens.

At first glance, a NATO force in the West Bank has several tempting elements, chief among them the idea of security for Israel without having to keep Israeli forces in the West Bank, thus not infringing on future Palestinian sovereignty there. While perhaps a seemingly sound compromise in theory, however, its implementation is very problematic.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that the odds are extremely slim that a NATO peacekeeping force, or any other international force for that matter, will be able to guarantee Israeli security, and thus allay Israel’s security concerns. For proof, one need only look back at the events of the past few decades.

Consider the history of international peacekeeping missions. Israel experienced firsthand the lack of security provided by international peacekeepers in 1967. Abdel Nasser of Egypt ordered UN peacekeepers out of the Sinai as he began amassing his army on Israel’s border, poised to attack. The peacekeepers left obediently, leaving Israel alone to face the Egyptian army.

UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force in Lebanon, did not prevent any of the rockets Hezbollah fired into Israel, nor Hezbollah’s kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers, both of which led up to the 2006 Israel- Lebanon War. Peacekeepers also retreated from their missions in Somalia and Rwanda, failing to prevent the genocides and mass murders that ensued. The Bosnian civil war paints another dubious picture for international peacekeeping.

As genocide raged, the UN guaranteed the town of Srebrenica as a safe haven for refugees and those seeking protection from the onslaught. In 1995, the 400-strong peacekeeping force stood by as thousands of Bosniaks in Srebrenica were killed.

All of this is not to say that a security agreement involving the United Nations and NATO cannot work, but that the task is enormous.

The West Bank and Jordan Valley are kept secure by Israeli deterrence and preemption capabilities of the Israel Defense Forces. It also includes tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers, many of which comprise undercover units and special anti-terror forces known to be the best in their field. There is no NATO or U.N force that would have the necessary mandate, expertise, or the commitment of Israeli troops. If the tragedies such as Srebrenica have shown anything, it is the difficulty in calling upon foreign powers to treat the security of others as if it were their own.

Israel is kept safe because Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah all know Israel will not hesitate to send soldiers to the front lines, or conduct raids in light of suspicious activity, nor will it hesitate to fire back when fired upon. Can NATO truly guarantee that if things heat up in Jenin, or on the border of Syrian, it will do all that is necessary to keep Israel secure? Or will it more likely be a hindrance? To make matters worse, if Israel were to leave the West Bank as part of a peace agreement without leaving a military presence, there would almost certainly be an inpouring of terrorist groups. We have already seen Hamas seizing power in Gaza after Israel withdrew in 2005, and we have already seen al-Qaida enter the Sinai, despite the presence of the multinational force stationed there. Israel cannot afford for the same to happen in the West Bank, a few short miles from our major cities.

As the breakup of Syria makes the region a magnet for global jihad terror groups like al-Qaida, Israel risks inviting the same problems through the Kerry- brokered peace agreement it hopes to sign with the Palestinians. The Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the aftermath of the Iraq war, and the Syrian civil war are all instructive models that teach us that terrorist cells will converge on any power vacuum and establish a foothold on any acre of land left unguarded.

Lastly, just as the BDS movement currently compromises Israel’s image among her friends in Europe and America, putting NATO forces in harm’s way will do the same and complicate diplomatic relations with all her allies. This will become much more than a public relations nightmare, affecting political and economic policies toward Israel.

The world longs for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but just as important as reaching an agreement will be the agreement’s durability.

Israel’s security should be maintained only by Israeli troops as long as terror groups and dangerous, extreme ideologies still remain such persistent foes in Israel’s backyard. This will not only ensure Israel’s security, but also the permanence and longevity of the peace agreement for which we have all waited so long.

The author is The Rennert Family Visiting Professor at Yeshiva University. He was Israel’s ambassador to the United States 2002- 2006, and deputy foreign minister of Israel 2009-2013.

Peacekeeping deployment of Irish troops has been prepare for Syria

Final preparations are being made for the second Irish Defence Forces deployment to war-torn Syria

PEACEKEEPING DEPLOYMENT OF IRISH TROOPS HAS BEEN PREPARE FOR SYRIA 

130 troops are travelling to the Golan Heights as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

The Defence Minister Alan Shatter and the Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Conor O'Boyle were at Stephens Barracks in Kilkenny today to review the 44th Infantry Group.

Over the next two weeks 130 troops will be deployed to the Golan Heights region of Syria for a six month tour of duty, where the conditions are hostile.

Renewed Syrian peace talks make little progress as concern rises for detained evacuees – UN

UN vehicles lead the evacuation from the Old City of Homs, Syria, during a three-day "humanitarian pause" in early February 2014. Photo: Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC)

RENEWED SYRIAN PEACE TALKS MAKE LITTLE PROGRESS AS CONCERN RISES FOR DETAINED EVACUEES–UN

11 February 2014 – United Nations-sponsored talks between the Syrian Government and opposition that resumed yesterday are making scant progress in ending the “nightmare” of the civil war, the top mediator said today, calling for a quicker pace as officials voiced “deep concern” at the detention by the authorities of men and boys leaving a long besieged city.

“The beginning of this week is as laborious as it was in the first week [of the talks]…I’m urging everybody to speed up,” UN-Arab League Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi told a news briefing in Geneva of the latest diplomatic push to end a war which has killed well over 100,000 people and driven nearly 9 million others from their homes since the conflict erupted between President Bashar al-Assad and various groups seeking his ouster nearly three years ago.

“We are not making much progress,” he said of the talks, which seek to implement the 2012 Geneva Communiqué, the first international conference on the conflict, calling for a transitional government to lead to free and fair elections, as well as to gain humanitarian access to 250,000 people who have been under siege of months or years without any aid and millions of others who have suffered the horrors of the war.

In just one example of the atrocities committed in the war, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today voiced “great shock” at the reported massacre of dozens of civilians on Sunday in the village of Ma’an and called for the perpetrators of this and all other crimes to be brought to justice. “Such horrific incidents should be a reminder to all of the urgency of ending the conflict and launching a political transition towards a new Syria,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brahimi said the three-day “humanitarian pause,” the first of its kind, allowing people out and aid into the Old City of Homs, where 2,500 Syrians have been trapped without succor for nearly two years in what has become an iconic symbol of the suffering endured by civilians in the war’s relentless bombardments and sieges, “can be called a success.”

But he noted pointedly that it took six months to reach the accord, which has been extended for a further three days. “Six long months, to get a couple of hundred people - no a little bit more than that - about 800 people out, and a little bit of food in,” he added. “And there are lots of other places that are besieged, where nothing has happened.”

He highlighted the risks involved in the Homs operation in which aid workers and convoys were deliberately targeted by sniper and other fire that killed 11 civilians and almost completely destroyed the car of the UN country representative while he and colleagues were in it.

“We all owe it to the Syrian people, to move a little bit faster than we are doing,” Mr. Brahimi stressed, adding that he will hold a tri-lateral meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov and United States Under-Secretary of State Wendy Sherman – representing the two countries which initiated the Geneva talks – on Friday.

“The people of Syria are thinking: ‘Please, get something going that will stop this nightmare and this injustice that is inflicted on the Syrian people.’”

UN agencies said 1,151 people have so far been evacuated from Homs Old City, reporting starvation conditions, with the UN human rights office voicing deep concern at the detention of 336 men and boys and warning that torture and mistreatment is a war crime.

Under the “humanitarian pause” women, children and the elderly were allowed to leave but not men over 15 and under 54 years of age. The 336 people detained, apparently not wishing to abandon their families, are in this latter category and were detained by Syrian authorities in a school on the outskirts where UN officials are present but do not attend interrogation sessions, with 41 being released today.

“It is essential that they do not come to any harm, and along with our colleagues in other UN organizations, we will continue to press for their proper treatment according to the international humanitarian and human rights law,” UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva.

He stressed that prohibited acts under the Geneva Conventions include “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, taking of hostages, and outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment,” including against members of armed forces who have laid down their arms or have been placed ‘hors de combat’ by sickness, wounds or detention.

Deploring the “disgraceful” fire targeting UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid workers delivering food and medical aid to Homs on Sunday, he warned: “It is a war crime to deliberately fire on those carrying out humanitarian operations.”

UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs told the briefing that evacuees from Homs are very weak with obvious signs of malnutrition. One man said he had survived for one week on one spoon of bulgur, while other reported eating leaves, grass, olives, and sometimes wheat flour, with the small remaining amounts of bulgur infested by insects.

She said that in January WFP dispatched enough food for 3.7 million people, leaving half a million people without any food aid due to deteriorating security. The agency, which needs to raise about $40 million every week to meet the food needs of people affected by the conflict, faces a serious shortfall and must raise $273 million to cover needs until the end of March in “a hand-to-mouth operation which requires immediate contributions.”

In an interview with UN Radio from Homs, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative Youssouf Abdel-Jelil said children coming out of the Old City “look terrified, frail and emaciated. In general, there are issues of malnutrition and also a need for vaccination for children.” UNICEF reported that evacuees say the same things about the conditions they have left: extreme cold, hunger, dirty water and constant shelling.

UN World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Fadela Chaib an aid convoy brought in agency medicines to treat chronic and infectious diseases to cover nearly 2,000 people for three months, as well as vaccines for polio and others diseases to cover 1,000 children. Many people were suffering from diseases including skin diseases for lack of water and sanitation, she added.

UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is trying to ensure that all civilians who want to can leave Homs and is doing its “very best under the most complicated and dangerous circumstances imaginable” to ensure that as many lives can be saved as possible, spokesperson Melissa Fleming said.

More than 20,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Turkey since the start of the year in the biggest influx since early 2013, with than 500 people, sometimes as many as 1,000 to 2,000, recently arriving every day across official crossing points, she added.

UN PEACE IN DARFUR A LONG WAY OFF AND NO DECISION YET TO SEND PEACEKEEPING FORCE TO SYRIA

UN PEACE IN DARFUR A LONG WAY OFF

UNITED NATIONS, July 25 (UPI) -- There is "a long way to go" before sustainable peace comes to the people in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur, a U.N. envoy said.

Ibrahim Gambari, the head of a peacekeeping mission led jointly by the African Union and the United Nations, said the people of Darfur have suffered for too long. Significant challenges remain for sustainable peace, however. "There remains a long way to go," he told members of the U.N. Security Council. "What progress has been made remains fragile and is easily reversible should we lose focus."

Gambari said he was working with regional leaders in an effort to persuade Sudanese leaders to return to the negotiating table. The International Criminal Court in 2009 issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes charges in Darfur. The United Nations estimates that at least 300,000 people have died since 2003 as a result of fighting between rebel forces and the government-backed Janjaweed militia.

The Sudanese government arrested a member of an opposition group recently for alleged ties to rebel groups in Darfur. Khartoum, meanwhile, was criticized for its crackdown on student protesters expressing frustrating with a deteriorating economic situation. Gambari added that "many provisions" from previous peace deals for Darfur "remained unimplemented."

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NO DECISION YET TO SEND PEACEKEEPING FORCE TO SYRIA

KUCHING -- The Malaysian Armed Forces have not decided yet whether to send a peacekeeping force to Syria, which is currently experiencing violent turbulence. Defense Minister Datuk Seri Dr.Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the decision to send a peacekeeping force there would also depend on the stand of the United Nations Security Council.

"The situation in Syria at the moment is still uncertain. If there is a request, we are prepared to send a team of observers but this will also depend on the cabinet's decision," he said after breaking fast with about 700 members of the MAF at the Solahuddin Al-Ayyubi Mosque, Penrissen Camp, here, today.

Ahmad Zahid said since the country's independence, Malaysia had been able to send about 25,000 members of its security forces to countries torn by internal strife, winning trust and high recognition from the United Nations. He said the success of Malaysia's peacekeeping forces was not limited to security operations in the turbulent countries but also included community welfare programmes organized. 

UN MISSION IN SYRIA CONTINUES TO SET UP DEPLOYMENT: SPOKESMAN

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (Xinhua) -The UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) on Friday continued to step up its deployment on the ground, despite a series of blasts hit different cities of the Middle East country, which has been plunged into a crisis since March 2011, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

"On Friday, the mission had 145 observers and 56 civilian staff deployed in Syria," UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said at a daily news briefing. "The mission is also carrying out patrols, one day after the attacks that took place in Damascus."

A powerful explosion went off near the ruling party headquarters in Syria's northern city of Aleppo on Friday evening, reports said. This blast is the second following the May 5 explosion in the city, killing at least five people.

On Thursday, two suicide blasts rip through Qazaz neighborhood in Damascus, killing 55 people in an attack that targeted a military intelligence building as employees were arriving at work, reports said.

"On Thursday afternoon, in a press statement, the members of the Security Council condemned those attacks in the strongest terms and expressed their deep sympathy and sincere condolences to the victims and their families," the spokesman said.

With a total mandated strength of 300 unarmed military observers and additional civilian staff as required, the UN mission continues to receive new members on a daily basis as it expands its presence across the Middle East country.

Despite the ongoing, but decreased violence in parts of Syria, the United Nations is working very hard to bring all the 300 unarmed observers into the Middle East country by the end of May, Herve Ladsous, the UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"We are working very actively on this, and we will actually achieve full deployment before the end of the month," Ladsous said.

U.N. Seeks More Recruits to Monitor Truce in Syria

The top United Nations Peacekeeping official said Tuesday, 1st May, 2012 that Syria remained troubled by appalling violence more than two weeks into the first deployment of cease-fire monitors there and that his organization had recruited only about half of the 300-member contingent he hoped to station in the country.

The official, Hervé Ladsous, the undersecretary for peacekeeping operations, also said Syrian authorities had not yet removed their heavy weapons from population centers, as required under the cease-fire plan, and had not granted a United Nations request to allow the monitors to use helicopters for rapid mobility in the country, where an antigovernment uprising is now in its 14th month.

Still, Mr. Ladsous said, the monitors who first began arriving in Syria in mid-April, now totaling 24, have helped to reduce some of the worst mayhem in the country simply by their presence. He also expressed confidence that a full deployment of all 300 monitors would be completed by the end of the month.

“Commitments are coming in, very solidly, but we are not yet at the 300 mark,” Mr. Ladsous said. “I think we have something like 150 solid commitments, which are already being processed. But we need more from member states.”

Mr. Ladsous spoke at a news conference at the United Nations headquarters that was intended to provide an update on the progress made since the first peacekeeping monitors were sent under the cease-fire plan negotiated by Kofi Annan, the joint special envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League.

But much of what Mr. Ladsous said appeared to reflect a lack of progress in helping to tame a conflict that has left more than 9,000 dead since March last year, when dissidents inspired by the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia first began protesting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. He responded with a harsh military repression that has become more like a civil war.

“The level of violence in Syria has been appalling,” Mr. Ladsous said. He repeatedly called on all sides in the conflict “to ensure that the cessation of violence is indeed observed.”

He declined to specify whether one side or the other was more at fault, saying “the important fact is that the violations have come from both sides.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Ladsous said monitors had observed the Syrian military’s armored personnel carriers, “a number of howitzers and other military equipment” that remained in position, contravening an important element of the cease-fire plan.

Mr. Ladsous spoke as more violence was reported in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition group with a network of informants in Syria, said that 10 people were killed — 9 of them from the same family — when a government mortar shell struck a village near the northern city of Idlib. Six others were killed in Homs and four in Hama, the observatory reported. It also said that 12 soldiers had died in a clash with army deserters in the eastern town of Deir el-Zour.

The government and the opposition blamed each other for assaults on Monday in Idlib and elsewhere, including a bombing aimed at the Central Bank headquarters in Damascus, with mutual accusations of subverting the United Nations peace plan. They also published divergent tolls, with government news media saying that in Idlib 9 had died and 100 had been wounded.

The human rights observatory said 20 people had died in Idlib, most of them members of the security services.

Rick Gladstone reported from New York, and Neil MacFarquhar from Beirut, Lebanon. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, and Alan Cowell from London.