UN to send monitoring mission to Syria

London - The United Nations has announced that the Assad regime had failed to implement his peace plan by withdrawing troops from the streets and it is planning to send a 200-strong monitoring mission to Syria.

Residents of Syria's major cities reported a downturn in violence as a ceasefire came into effect on Thursday morning.

UN envoy Kofi Annan backed the major activist groups who claimed the regime had failed to honour its promise to withdraw troops and tanks from towns and cities.

He told the UN Security Council by video from Geneva that he wanted it to authorise its own monitoring mission to supervise the ceasefire, The Telegraph reports.

Annan also challenged the council, including the regime's key allies Russia and China, to issue a formal demand that it comply with the demand to withdraw troops.

Russia said it would back the monitoring mission, which has also been agreed by Syria and is likely to be approved by a UNSC resolution on Friday.

The first team of observers might leave by the weekend, according to reports.

A UN monitoring mission would put far more pressure on the Assad regime than the only previous such effort, organised by a badly split Arab League in December, the paper reports.