Syrians arranged an interesting welcome for an advance team of UN monitors who are supposed to police the "cease fire" that isn't much if a cease fire and make sure that President Assad abides by the agreement negotiated with Kofi Annan. Good luck with that. The monitors were visiting Erbid, a suburb of Damascus when they were blitzed by hundreds of anti-Assad protestors angry over the lack of action at the UN. Then gunfire broke out, according to Reuters, and the crowd scattered. Shooting erupted on Wednesday close to an advance party of military personnel from the United Nations who had been swarmed by protesters denouncing President Bashar al-Assad in the town of Erbin, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus. There were no reports of casualties. But scenes of monitors' vehicles stuck in a crowd and men running away while gunfire rattled in the air were an ominous echo of an earlier monitoring mission, by the Arab League, which collapsed in January. The ...(Read Full Post)