UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan left Damascus without managing to secure an accord to end bloodletting in Syria, as fighting raged in major flashpoints leaving dozens more dead.
Mr Annan departed at the end of a two-day mission during which he said he presented President Bashar al-Assad with "concrete proposals" to halt unrest monitors say has claimed more than 8,500 lives since March last year.
On the ground however, more than 120 people - 47 of them civilians caught in the crossfire - have been killed in two days of clashes between armed rebels and regular soldiers, according to figures of rights monitors.
Most of the deaths occurred in an ferocious assault by regime forces against rebel bastions in the northwestern Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that fighting also occurred Sunday in the central city of Hama, the nearby province of Homs, and in the Damascus countryside.
Mr Annan, on his first mission to Syria to attempt to secure a halt to the violence, had emerged positive from talks with Mr Assad.
"It's going to be tough, it's going to be difficult, but we have to have hope. I am optimistic," Mr Annan told reporters.
"The situation is so bad and so dangerous that all of us cannot afford to fail," the former UN chief warned, in response to a suggestion that dialogue with the government was futile.
Mr Assad had insisted during their first meeting on Saturday there would be no dialogue until the "terrorist groups" he claims are fomenting the violence are disbanded.
Adamant
Opposition figures who met with Mr Annan, however, were adamant that the regime troops pressing the crackdown on dissent must first return to barracks.
At least another 34 people were killed in violence across Syria today, including eight soldiers and seven civilians in a string of incidents in Idlib province, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
"Fierce fighting has been raging between deserters and regular army troops since (Sunday) morning in the Idlib province village of Al-Janudieh," the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahmansaid.
After seizing Idlib city yesterday, troops fanned out into rural areas of the province, notably the Jisr al-Shughur district, Abdel Rahman said.
