DAMASCUS: Syria showed no let up in assaults on protest hubs Wednesday as peace envoy Kofi Annan said there was still a chance to salvage a peace plan for a complete halt to hostilities within 24 hours.
Activist group the Local Coordination Committees said explosions and heavy gunfire were heard early morning in Damascus and southern Daraa province, cradle of a 13-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Shells and rockets were fired into Khaldiyeh, a stronghold for regime opponents who have taken up arms, as well as other parts of the flashpoint city of Homs, in central Syria, the LCC reported.
At least seven civilians were killed in Homs on Tuesday, the deadline for Assad's government to withdraw its troops and heavy weapons from population centres under the peace plan it agreed with Annan.
On the northern border, shots fired by Syrian forces struck a Syrian refugee camp inside Turkey early Wednesday, Turkish media reported, two days after shooting from Syria wounded four Syrians and two Turks on Turkish soil.
Annan, speaking on a visit to Tehran, said however that the situation in Syria should be "much improved" by Thursday's deadline for a ceasefire if both sides in the conflict respect his six-point peace plan.