Syria lambastes U.N. chief

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria derided U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as biased and called his comments "outrageous" Saturday after he blamed the regime for widespread cease-fire violations - the latest sign of trouble for an international peace plan that many expect to fail.

In new fighting Saturday, activists said regime forces battled army defectors near President Bashar al-Assad's summer palace in a coastal village and shelled a Damascus suburb in pursuit of gunmen. State media said government troops foiled an attempt by armed men in rubber boats to land on Syria's coast, the first reported attempt by rebels to infiltrate from the sea.

The regime's verbal attack on the U.N. secretary-general raised new concerns that Assad is playing for time to avoid compliance with a plan that could eventually force him out of office.

Under special envoy Kofi Annan's six-point road map, a cease-fire is to be followed by the deployment of as many as 300 U.N. truce monitors and talks between Assad and the opposition on Syria's political future. The head of the observer team, Norwegian Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, is to arrive in Damascus on Sunday to assume command, spokesman Neeraj Singh said.

Annan's April 12 cease-fire deadline has been widely ignored. The regime continues to attack opposition strongholds, while rebel fighters keep targeting security forces with roadside bombs and shooting ambushes. Defying a major truce provision, the Syrian military failed to withdraw tanks and soldiers from the streets.

Ban and Annan have cited violations by both sides but generally portrayed the regime as the main aggressor. On Friday, Ban said Syria's repression of civilians reached an "intolerable stage" and demanded that the regime "live up to its promises to the world." His comments came just hours after a suicide bombing the regime blamed on antigovernment "terrorists" killed 10 people in Damascus.

An editorial Saturday in the state-run Tishrin newspaper said Ban has avoided discussing rebel violence, in favor of "outrageous" statements against the Syrian government. The editorial said the international community has applied a double standard, ignoring "crimes and terrorist acts" against Syria and thus encouraging more violence, according to excerpts carried by the state-run news agency SANA.

Saturday's comments were the regime's harshest against the United Nations since Syria announced last month that it would abide by the Annan plan. The Syrian opposition and its Western backers argue that Assad is not sincere and is just buying time to consolidate his hold on Syria.

The regime "wants to make the U.N. a party to the conflict, rather than a mediator, and to stretch out the process to prevent any kind of serious change," Rami Khoury, an analyst at the American University of Beirut, said of Saturday's editorial.

However, the regime and its supporters argue that the world intentionally ignores rebel cease-fire violations, such as targeted killings of security officials, said Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group think tank who has traveled in Syria.

"In the regime's narrative, its use of force is only a reaction to such assaults," he said. "Officials and sympathizers cling to the idea that they are fighting a legitimate struggle against a fifth column of extremists."