Syrian forces fire on refugee camp inside Turkish borders

Syrian gunfire wounds three in Turkey as violence continues One day ahead of Tuesday's ceasefire deadline, violence in  Syria shows no sign of abating. Three people in Turkey have reportedly been wounded by Syrian gunfire over the border . Syrian forces fired on a refugee camp inside Turkish borders on Monday, injuring three people, Turkish officials have said.
"Two Syrians and a Turkish translator were wounded this morning by shootings coming from the Syrian side of the border," diplomatic sources said.
There has so far been no response from Syria about the alleged attack.
The incident reportedly occurred near the southeastern town of Kilis, where Turkey has set up a camp for Syrian refugees. Around 25,000 Syrian refugees are currently housed in three Turkish provinces on the border to Syria, having fled the regime's bloody repression of year-long anti-government protests.
The international mediator for Syria, Kofi Annan, is to visit some of the refugee camps on Tuesday, according to a Turkish diplomatic source.
Turkey has seen several demonstrations against the Syrian government The official told the AFP news agency that the former UN chief would visit the camps for a few hours ahead of a trip to Iran.
This comes as a peace plan put forward by Annan and agreed to by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seems in jeopardy.
Syria on Sunday demanded written guarantees that insurgents will stop fighting before it pulls back troops under the terms of a peace plan, casting additional doubt over a truce due to start this week
Escalating violence has already raised questions over the ceasefire. Opposition activists said dozens of people were killed and wounded on Sunday when President Bashar al-Assad's loyalists shelled a rebellious area near the border with Turkey, according to Reuters.
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, seeking to end the conflict that has killed more than 9,000 people in the past year, said the latest bloodshed violated the guarantees he had been given and urged Damascus to keep its promises.
The deal Annan brokered calls on Syria to begin the pullback of troops from around towns and cities by Tuesday for a truce to start 48 hours later.
While emphasising that would happen, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said in a statement that Syria also wanted the written guarantees.
"Syria has a plan for military pullback already in place and being implemented, but completing and achieving the main goal would definitely require the guarantees from the other side and those supporting them to abide by the terms of calm," he said.
Syria also sought guarantees that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - outspoken in criticising Assad - would not fund the armed groups.
Annan made no specific reference to the new Syrian demands in a statement from his office in Geneva.
He expressed shock at the "surge in violence and atrocities". Each side has accused the other of intensifying assaults in the run-up to the truce.
"As we get closer to the Tuesday 10 April deadline, I remind the Syrian government of the need for full implementation of its commitments and stress that the present escalation of violence is unacceptable," he said.
Dozens of people were killed and wounded when Assad's tanks shelled an area in the rebellious province of Idlib, near the border with Turkey, opposition activists said.
Fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army were surrounded in the village of al-Bashiriya, activists said.
"The army is shelling al-Rouge with tanks, and helicopters are firing rockets at al-Bashiriya. Tens of people have fallen dead or injured but we cannot get to them because the bombardment is heavy," said activist Mahmoud Ali, with the sound of helicopters audible on the phone.
A major Syrian army offensive to seize back large swathes of Idlib that had fallen under rebel control has killed and wounded hundreds of people in the last 10 days. Thousands of Syrians have fled to Turkey.
No comment on the fighting was immediately available from Syrian officials. The government has placed tight restrictions on media access in Syria, making it hard to verify witness accounts.
The Syrian government continued its offensives against rebel-held towns, as activists said 28 people were killed on Saturday.
The news came as the US posted online satellite images of troop deployments that cast further doubt on whether the regime intends to comply with an internationally sponsored peace plan.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had accepted a ceasefire deadline brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan, which calls for his forces to pull out of towns and cities by Tuesday and for both government and rebels to lay down their arms by 6am local time on Thursday.
But the escalating violence of the past few days has fuelled accusations that Assad is rushing to stamp out as much of the year-old uprising against him as he can before next week's ceasefire.
The Syrian government said it has begun to withdraw forces ahead of the ceasefire but activists say no significant pullouts have taken place and troops, checkpoints and snipers remain in almost all major flashpoint towns and cities.
"They are systematically trying to crush the revolt wherever they can and regardless of the human cost," said activist Mohammad Saeed in the Damascus suburb of Douma.
US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said the Syrian government appears to have pulled back some of its forces from towns and cities but in other places has kept them in place or simply shifted around troops and armoured vehicles.
He said he was basing his information on satellite images before and after the alleged pullouts which were posted on the US Embassy Facebook page.
Arrests, sweeps and the artillery bombardment of opposition strongholds have continued, Ford's statement said.
"This is not the reduction in offensive Syrian government security operations that all agree must be the first step for the Annan initiative to succeed," the statement said.
Western leaders along with the Syrian opposition have cast doubt on Assad's intentions, suggesting he is playing for time and is not serious about the plan, which aims to pave the way for talks between the regime and the opposition on a political solution.
The government has launched offensives in several parts of the country in the past few days in a desperate attempt to crush the rebels.
The Local Coordination Committees said shelling by government forces on Saturday killed at least 24 people in the village of al-Latamneh in the suburbs of the restive city of Hama. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number of deaths at 27. It said most were killed by shells fired as troops tried to storm al-Latamneh following clashes with defectors there over the past two days.
In the nearby province of Homs, activists also reported shelling of the rebel-held areas of Rastan, Deir Baalabeh and Qusair, where they said four people including a mother and her son were killed.
Violence was also reported in the northern province of Idlib. The offensive there has triggered a massive wave of refugees who crossed the border to Turkey in the past few days with horrific accounts of mass graves, massacres and burned-out homes.
Ankara urged the United Nations and international community to reinforce efforts to aid Syrian refugees after a record 2,800 people poured across the border in less than two days, taking the number in Turkey to nearly 24,000.
But Syria said on Friday that the number of what it calls "terrorist acts" had risen since the deal was reached with Annan.
At the same time, Damascus lashed out at the UN high commissioner for human rights, accusing her of turning a blind eye to "terrorism" funded from abroad.
Damascus has also demanded a written commitment that the opposition will not seek to exploit the troop withdrawal to make territorial gains.
A UN advance team headed by a Norwegian general had arrived in Syria to discuss the eventual deployment of a UN supervising mission, Annan's spokesman said on Thursday.