France: Assad is guilty of Syria massacres

France: Assad is guilty of Syria massacres

clipped from article: "If we feel they (the monitors) are still not serious in a few days, or at most within a week, we will take a decision which will surprise the regime and the whole world," the head of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Colonel Riad Asaad, told Reuters.

Army defectors and armed rebels, loosely organized under the FSA umbrella, have begun assaults on Syrian state forces in the past months, killing hundreds of soldiers in operations they said are meant to defend the uprising's peaceful protests against President Assad.

Assad told Reuters last week he had ordered a halt to attacks on security forces to give the monitors a chance to operate and "prove that it is the regime that is the criminal."

The colonel, speaking by telephone from his safe haven in southern Turkey, said that the monitors' presence in Syria last week had not stemmed the bloodshed.

A Reuters tally based on activist reports shows that at least 129 people were killed in the team's first week. Other activist groups put the toll as high as 390. [ read more at link]