Al-Assad accepts peace plan, but reports of more violence emerge

A day after news broke that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accepted a plan to forge peace, fresh clashes broke out once again across Syria on Wednesday, opposition activists said.

Three members of the Syrian security forces were killed and four defecting soldiers were injured in intense clashes at an entrance to the western city of Rastan, which security forces have been trying to storm, said the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

And fierce fighting erupted between the Syrian security forces and a group of defectors in the southern Daraa province, the observatory said. The group said clashes began after an army soldier threatened residents in the town of Busr el-Harir to hand over the defectors or face a military operation.