"I withdrew from the Arab observers mission because I found myself serving the regime, and not part of an independent observer group," Anwar Malek told the Doha-based news channel Al Jazeera.

The Syrian regime is playing "dirty," charged the Algerian observer. "It even began killing its supporters to convince the Arab observers that it is carrying out its duties and to gain their sympathy."

"The mission was a farce and the observers have been fooled. The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime," Malek said.

"What I saw was a humanitarian disaster. The regime isn't committing one war crime but a series of crimes against its people," he said. "Children are killed and they are starved and terrorized."

The observer who said he spent 15 days in the flashpoint central city of Homs said it must be declared a "disaster" zone. "I saw charred and skinned bodies that had been tortured," said Malek.

Soldiers "attempting to flee or defect were executed," said Malek. "I saw three bodies of executed soldiers. They were shot from the back." In the interview, Malek said that there had been "an assassination attempt on Monday as we were being taken by car from Homs to Damascus" via the restive Baba Amro district where the mission came under gunfire.

Malek accused the Syrian regime of plotting the attack on the road "controlled by the army and pro-regime 'shabiha' militiamen." Also on Monday, two Kuwaiti army officers in the observer mission were "slightly hurt" in an attack by "unidentified protesters," the Gulf state's Defense Ministry has reported.

The observers were attacked while heading to the coastal city of Latakia, said the ministry.

Malek accused the Syrian regime of sending "spies and intelligence officers with our team to act as drivers and minders to get our information, and as soon as we left an area they attacked people."

On the detainees, he said, "None of the real prisoners on the lists of detainees the opposition has provided us with have been released."

The Arab League monitors have been in Syria since Dec. 26 to oversee a deal to protect civilians in the country, where the regime has waged a bloody crackdown on opposition protesters since mid-March.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed on Wednesday to vanquish "foreign conspirators" plotting to end his rule.

Bashar, fighting 10 months of pro-democracy protests, greeted thousands of rapturous supporters in a Damascus square, only a day after breaking a six-month public silence.

The crowd shouted "Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Bashar Assad," a reference to loyalist militiamen, who have gained a fearsome reputation for their part in suppressing protests against the president.

Bashar's wife Asma and their two children joined him for his surprise appearance in the capital's central Umayyad Square.

"I belong to this street," Bashar, 46, said, adding Syria faced foreign conspirators. "We will make this phase the end for them and their plans. We are going to win without any doubt."

His remarks followed a 100-minute speech on Tuesday in which he mocked the Arab League, vowed to hit "terrorists" with an iron fist and promised reforms, but with no hint that he would relinquish the power he inherited from his father in 2000.

In the latest violence, four people were killed in Kafr Nabouda, in Hama province, where troops staging raids fought army deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It put Tuesday's civilian death toll at 27, including 15 in the city of Deir Al-Zor and 10 in Homs, plus four army defectors.