Syria Live Blog

Ammar Wawi, a Free Syrian Army officer in Turkey, denies that his movement carried out recent bombings in Syria.

He spoke to Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra about the progress of the uprising.

Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms shipments in violation of a UN Security Council ban on weapons exports by the country, according to a confidential draft report by a UN panel of experts seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

"Syria continues to be the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers," said the report, which the expert panel has submitted to the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee.

The draft also said that "sanctions are slowing Iran's procurement of some critical items required for its prohibited nuclear programme. At the same time prohibited activities continue, including uranium enrichment."

A former state Tv employee has told Reuters that many of the "confessions" by alleged terrorists aired by the channel are bogus. 

Although an ardent supporter of Assad, the former producer said she is distressed by what she describes as a campaign of misinformation waged by the official "Suriya" television channel.

"I used to arrive at work and one of the editors would tell us that we have a person to confess," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from her former employer.

"Some of the men are just normal people who were arrested in anti-government demonstrations and others were thieves and criminals who were nearing the end of their sentence," said the producer, in her late twenties. "They were told they will be set free if they confess to the made-up crimes."

One confession gained particular fame in Syria when the confessor, Ghassin Selawaya from the coastal city of Lattakia, appeared to be playing to the demands of the producer. 

"Er...we burned buses...er...we resisted security patrols, it was all rioting," he muttered, sitting in a T-shirt surrounded by a shotgun and pistols, weapons the presenter said police found on him.

According to opposition activists, Selawaya's family said he was in fact arrested before the uprising for unrelated crimes.

Six members of a UN observer team which came under bomb attack in Syria were forced to stay the night with anti-government activists in the northwest town of Khan Sheikhun, an activist said on Wednesday.

"The monitors had to stay behind after their car was damaged by the blast," Abu Hammam, a Khan Sheikhun-based activist, said.

The monitors were safe and evacuated on Wednesday afternoon, after having witnessed "death with their own eyes" on Tuesday as government forces gunned down mourners in a funeral procession, Abu Hammam said by telephone.

The six monitors were successfully evacuated Wednesday afternoon, after having spent the night in the restive town.

-- AFP