There is one more day before the guns of the Assad regime are supposed to fall silent and the ceasefire begins which is the first step in the UN-Arab League peace plan. There are not many people holding their breath for this to happen. Since the start of the popular uprising in Syria over a year ago, the Al-Assad regime's record has been one of regular evasion and consistently broken promises. Yet the markedly increased level of military activity in the last four days, could perhaps be taken as a final push before the regime honors its pledge to stop firing. However, only a foolish optimist will believe this. The truth will undoubtedly prove to be that Bashar Al-Assad has seized this opportunity of more frenzied assaults on his own people precisely because he hopes, in advance of a real ceasefire, to secure his tactical and strategic position on Syria's streets. In practice, of course, for Syrian forces and government militias, it is slaughter as usual. Thus we are seeing massively increased bombardments of rebel positions. In Homs, shells were reportedly landing on the suburb of Jouret Al-Shiyah at the rate of eight a minute. There was also renewed assaults on Idlib and on the Damascus suburb of Douma by tanks, mortars and artillery, as well as sniper fire from high buildings. The theory is that tomorrow, the Assad government must withdraw all troops and heavy weapons from the streets, leaving them only to guard official buildings and barracks. In the following 48 hours the ceasefire will be implemented, effectively by the rebels, since if Al-Assad were to honor his pledge none of his troops would be there to be fired on. At 0600 hours next Thursday, absolutely all fighting is scheduled to have stopped and thereafter UN-mediated peace talks will follow. At the weekend, UN officials were still in Damascus negotiating the deployment of monitors to oversee the ceasefire. Reports suggest that, aware that it may be harder to manipulate UN peacekeepers than the Arab League monitors, Al-Assad's people are not giving the UN team an easy time which may well explain why on Friday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly criticized the Al-Assad regime for its latest attacks on civilians and demanded that it keep its promise to end all military operations by Tuesday. But we all know that, come next Thursday, Al-Assad wants to be in a position to protest that it was impossible to withdraw his troops as promised, because the rebels continued their attacks, ensuring that government forces were unable to disengage. However, he does not want any UN monitors around to see the falsehood of these claims. Of equal importance to his ruthless enforcers is the need to clear up the evidence of savage reprisals against anyone suspected of even sympathizing, let alone actually assisting the rebels. Even now when the world has seen more than sufficient evidence of the atrocities that the regime has perpetrated, the butchers still feel the need to try and wash away the blood. In less than a week's time, the full extent of Al-Assad's bad faith will once again be clear. The question then will be: What will his Russian and Chinese friends do next? __
