DAMASCUS, Dec 28: Arab monitors revisited the flashpoint Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday and headed to other protest hubs as world powers warned Damascus not to hinder their mission, aimed at revealing the truth about a crackdown on dissent.

More bloodshed was reported as army defectors killed at least four Syrian soldiers in the southern province of Daraa, two civilians were shot dead in Homs, another in Hama and one during protests in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Also reported were arrests and gunshot injuries in Idlib province and more shooting injuries, with three suspected fatalities, in a village near Damascus.

France claimed that the team of monitorswas not being allowed to see what was happening in Homs as repression continued there.

Those concerns were highlighted when residents of Homs's Baba Amro quarter refused to allow observers in because they were accompanied by an army officer, the Observatory said. The standoff ended when the officer withdrew.

The residents asked the monitors to 'come and see the wounded people and the parents of the martyrs, and not members of the (ruling) Baath party,' Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The monitors also visited the Bab Sebaa quarter of Homs, where the Observatory said the regime had organised a parade in support of President Bashar al-Assad.The observers were due to visit Daraa, cradle of the nine-month anti-regime protests, as well as the northern provinces of Hama and Idlib, and around Damascus.

'As of Wednesday evening, and from Thursday at dawn, the observers will deploy in Idlib and Hama and in Daraa,' mission chief General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi said. Dabi, a veteran Sudanese military intelligence officer, said observers would also fan out 50-80 kilometres around Damascus.

The observers arrived in Syria at the weekend and on Tuesday visited Homs, which has been besieged by government troops for several months.

Dabi said the visit to Homs had been 'good,' and that he was returning there onWednesday. He said more observers would join the mission, which now numbers 66 people. French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Tuesday's visit had been too brief and insufficiently revealing.

'A few Arab League observers were able to be briefly present in Homs yesterday.

Their presence did not prevent the continuing of the bloody crackdown in this city, where large demonstrations were violently repressed, leaving about 10 dead,' he said.

'The brevity of their visit did not allow them to understand the reality of the situation in Homs. The Arab League observers must be allowed to return without delay to this martyr city, to travel everywhere in it freely and to have the necessary contact with the public.The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that calls for the withdrawal of security forces from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.

Valero said 'the international community will be reassured when the violence has stopped, when the army has returned to barracks, when the political prisoners are freed and when foreign journalists will receive visas to go to Syria.

The Russian foreign minister urged Syria to give the observers maximum freedom as they go about their mission. 'We constantly work with the Syrian leadership calling on it to fully cooperate with observers from the Arab League,' he said.-AFP