Syrian troops killed 31 people yesterday, continuing the army's fierce assault on President Bashar al-Assad's opponents instead of silencing its artillery and withdrawing from towns as agreed in a fraying international peace plan.
The worst bloodshed was in the city of Homs, where shelling of opposition districts killed at least 26, activists said.
Opposition groups said there was no sign of a military pullout, with tanks still in cities such as Homs and Hama.
Citing satellite images, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman endorsed that view and denounced as a "blatant lie" a Syrian assurance that troops were withdrawing to meet yesterday's deadline.
The rebels have also continued to wage war.
The anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said insurgents killed six soldiers in attacks on checkpoints on an eastern desert road.
As the end-of-day deadline loomed for Damascus to implement the ceasefire plan, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem demanded guarantees from its author, UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, that armed insurgents would also honour a truce.
"We will not ask the terrorist groups, which are killing, kidnapping and destroying infrastructure, for guarantees. We want Annan to give us these guarantees," Moualem said in Moscow.
The last-minute demand, a variant of one Syria made at the weekend, is not mentioned in Annan's proposals and appears designed to complicate his struggle to get all parties to comply with a six-point plan that is so far largely a dead letter.
The rebel Free Syrian Army would fight on if Assad failed to withdraw troops and tanks as required, a spokesman, Colonel Qassem Saad al-Deen, said.
The opposition Syrian National Council said a partial ceasefire was unacceptable and government forces must stop all violence. Its spokesman, Basma Kodmani, told a news conference in Geneva that arrests, house demolitions and shelling by tanks and anti-aircraft guns were continuing.
The Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots activist group, said Assad's "corrupt criminal regime" was trying to buy time to impose its will by force.
It chided the UN and the Arab League for failing to restrain Damascus.
China, which along with Russia has blocked punitive UN Security Council action against Syria, said it hoped all sides would immediately obey the UN-backed ceasefire, aimed at stopping a 13-month uprising from sliding into full-scale civil war.
Extra conditions set by Damascus have fuelled widespread doubts that the deadline for a full truce, to start by 6am tomorrow, would be respected.
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