Syria death toll mounts as NGO urges observers to either ‘stop killings’ or ‘leave’

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday urged United Nations monitors to end violence in Syria or leave the country, where over 100 people have been killed in violence in two days.

As many as 40 have been killed on Friday by the fire of Syrian forces across the country, Al Arabiya reported citing activists at the Local Coordination Committees.

“The role of the international observers has become that of a witness to murder,” the Britain-based watchdog stated, condemning the recent spike in violence despite their presence.

“It is worth mentioning that the number of victims has risen dramatically over the last month,” the Observatory said.

On Thursday at least 84 people died in clashes and bombings across Syria, 48 of them civilians, the Observatory said.

“We call on the international observers to work for the immediate implementation of the Kofi Annan plan and ceasefire in order to stop the killings in Syria or to return to their home countries.”

Earlier on Friday, Major General Robert Mood, who heads the U.N. observer mission in Syria said that the escalating bloodshed was hampering the ability of observers to carry out their mission.

“The escalating violence is limiting our ability to observe, verify reports as well as assist in local dialogue and stability,” the veteran Norwegian peacekeeper told reporters in Damascus.

A U.N. convoy trying to reach the town of al-Haffa on Tuesday, under siege by regime troops, came under fire and was forced to turn back by a stone-throwing crowd.

The team was finally able to visit the town on Thursday, finding it all but deserted with a strong stench of dead bodies and most state buildings burned to the ground.

Also on Thursday, 14 people were also wounded in suicide vehicle bombing near an important Shiite Muslim shrine in the capital, the state news agency SANA said.

Syrian authorities said they had uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to bomb Damascus mosques around the main weekly prayers.

A suspect detained on Thursday confessed that he had been planning a suicide bombing during Friday prayers at al-Rifai Mosque in the heart of the capital, SANA reported.

The suspect told interrogators that the group’'s members “have prepared young men... to carry out suicide bombings in several areas in Damascus during prayers on Friday, June 15,” SANA said.

France, meanwhile, said that world powers could hold a summit on the Syrian crisis as the deadly anti-regime revolt entered its 16th month.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said major powers could hold a conference at the end of the month in Geneva on the crisis which erupted in mid-March 2011 and has since cost more than 14,400 lives, according to the Observatory.

“There is a possibility of holding a conference in Geneva on June 30,” Fabius told France Inter radio.

Participants would include U.N. Security Council countries, but the meeting would be held “without the constraints of the Security Council,” he added.

Fabius also said that talks were under way with Russia on Syria’s future if President Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov swiftly denied such talks had taken place with France or the United States, which have both been pushing for Assad to step down.

“There were no such discussions and there could not have been such discussions. This completely contradicts our position,” Lavrov told reporters. “We are not involved in regime change.”

Russia, along with China, has vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Assad and has vowed to oppose any military intervention.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, accused Syrian government forces of having used sexual violence to torture men, women, girls and boys detained since the unrest broke out in March 2011.

The New York-based group said it had interviewed 10 former detainees, including two women, who described being sexually abused or witnessing such abuse in detention.