UN steps up pressure on Syrian regime

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has said that Syria's conflict is deepening and attacks on civilian areas show no sign of abating, though President Bashar Assad's government insists it is withdrawing troops before a 10 April UN deadline to end the violence.

"Cities, towns and villages have been turned into war zones. The sources of violence are proliferating," Ban said in his address UN General Assembly on Thursday.

"The human rights of the Syrian people continue to be violated. ... Humanitarian needs are growing dramatically."

Ban's comments came as activists reported that Syrian troops attacked the Damascus suburb of Douma, an assault they said showed that Assad was intensifying violence in the days before the April 10 deadline

His crackdown on the year-long uprising has left at least 9,000 people dead, according to the UN.

Annan and Ban spoke to the General Assembly minutes after the UN Security Council called on Syria to "urgently and visibly" fulfill its pledge to halt the use of troops and weapons by 10 April.

It called on the government and opposition to stop all violence within 48 hours if Syria met the pullout deadline.

The presidential statement, read out by Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, whose country holds the Council's presidency for the month of April, raised the possibility of "further steps" if Syria failed to implement the six-point Annan plan, which Assad agreed to on 25 March.

The statement called on all parties, including the opposition, to stop armed violence in all forms in 48 hours after the Syrian government fully fulfills the measures.

Meanwhile, more than 2,300 Syrians have fled into Turkey since Wednesday. The figure is more than twice the highest previous one-day total in March, when more than 1,000 people crossed over the border.

On Thursday, a UN team arrived in Damascus to start technical preparations for the possible deployment of UN monitors for any ceasefire between Syrian troops and rebel forces.

Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said the UN was looking for a team of 200 to 250 soldiers to monitor a ceasefire.

The deployment of UN monitors would first have to be authorised by the 15-nation Security Council.

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said he was not optimistic about a peace plan for Syria and was ready to push for stronger UN action if the deadline was not met. Assad "is deceiving us" when he promises to abide by the peace plan, Juppe said.

"If we manage to get 200 observers (and the other measures in the peace plan) in place, things will change dramatically," he told reporters in Paris. "If we don't manage to get this by 12 April, we have to go back to the U.N. Security Council.