U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is accusing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of failing to meet the terms of an international peace plan. In a report to the U.N. Security Council, Ban says Assad’s forces are flouting the ceasefire with continued attacks on opposition areas. Ban also called for the deployment of hundreds of additional international monitors to observe the situation on the ground. The head of the current monitoring team, U.N. Colonel Ahmed Himmiche, called for time to build trust with all sides of the conflict.

Col. Ahmed Himmiche: “Our mission, as you know, is establish liaison with the Syrian government, the Syrian security forces, and also with other parties. To establish this liaison, I mean, we need time, we need trust. We need to build confidence and trust within all the parties in order to achieve our task. I think we are in, I mean, just — I mean, this is our third day. We are engaging — I mean, both engaged, and that means liaison with both the authorities and also with the other parties, and I think we’ll achieve our mandate, if you help us and explain our mandate, because there are a lot of expectations that are beyond a team of 30 military observers.”