Sheikh Anas Airout, a senior member of the Syrian National Council, said Annan did not get an agreement from the opposition body but that the Free Syrian Army, a main armed opposition group composed primarily of defected soldiers, committed to abide by the cease-fire as long as the regime stopped its attacks.

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Russian diplomats have made scant efforts to meet with Syrian opposition figures and Moscow seems to accept Damascus' portrayal of the opposition as a group of armed criminal gangs, according to a Western official familiar with the Russian thinking.

WSJ: U.N. Vetoes to Inflame Syrian Conflict

With Mr Assad's troops apparently determined to wipe out armed opposition in advance of the ceasefire, the Syrian National Council, an umbrella opposition group based in Istanbul, protested that the death rate had climbed to 1, 000 during the first week of April, a sharp upsurge for a conflict that has claimed, on UN estimates, some 9, 000 victims in a whole year.

ECONOMIST: A peace plan comes into wobbly effect