Syrian demonstrators living in Egypt hold Libya's new flag as they gather for a candlelight vigil in support of anti-government protesters in Syria near the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Sunday. [Filippo / Agence France-Presse]

BEIRUT - Thirteen people were killed as Syrian armored forces battled opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in Homs on Monday, residents said, ahead of a planned visit by Arab League monitors to verify whether he is ending a crackdown on unrest.

A day before observers were to have their first look at the city at the heart of a nine-month-old uprising, there was no sign of Assad implementing a plan agreed with the league to halt a military crackdown on protests and start talks with opponents.

With an armed insurgency increasingly eclipsing civilian protests, many fear Syria is drifting toward sectarian war pitting majority Sunni Muslims against Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, especially after a double suicide bombing in Damascus on Thursday that killed 44 people.

"The violence is definitely two-sided," said a Homs resident who named himself only as Mohammed to protect his safety. "I've been seeing ambulances filled with wounded soldiers passing by my window in the past days. They're getting shot somehow."

Parts of Homs are defended by the so-called Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors from the regular armed forces, who say they have tried to establish no-go areas to protect civilians.

The initial 50 of 150 Arab League monitors were due to arrive in Syria on Monday, and some will go to Homs on Tuesday, a source said at the organization's headquarters in Cairo.

Their job will be to assess whether Assad is going to withdraw tanks and troops from Syria's third largest city as promised.

"The Arab monitoring team will visit Homs as it is the most turbulent place," the source said.

Syrian state television has regularly shown some areas of the city of one million people looking peaceful. But activist video posted on the Internet shows other parts looking like a war zone of empty streets, bodies and shattered house fronts.

The United Nations says at least 5,000 Syrians have been killed in the revolt, and an estimated one-third of deaths have occurred in and around Homs.

Assad says his government is facing an insurgency by gangs of terrorists.

Arab League states persuaded him, after six weeks of threats and cajoling, to let 150 observers in to witness what is happening on the ground.

The first group of about 50 monitors, led by Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, will be divided into five 10-man teams which will travel to five locations.

Arab League mission chief Dabi arrived in Damascus on Friday while the capital was reeling from twin suicide bombings last week that marked an ominous escalation of the violence.

Assad's opponents say they suspect his government carried out the Damascus bombings itself to prove to the world that Syria is facing indiscriminate violence by armed Islamists and to intimidate the work of the Arab League monitors.

The Syrian authorities blame the violence on foreign-backed armed Islamists who they say have killed 2,000 members of the security forces since the unrest flared in March.

Reuters