The death toll of 11,117 is 7,972 civilians and 3,145 military and gunmen, including fewer than 600 rebel fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Among the dead were nine civilians killed by regime forces yesterday, only hours after UN peacekeepers arrived in Syria to oversee a truce aimed at ending a year of bloodshed.

A handful of soldiers in blue caps put a tentative United Nations presence at the heart of the Syrian crisis on Monday, predicting success for their mission to stabilize a shaky four-day-old cease-fire even as shells continued to fall.

Charged with overseeing an end to 13 months of violence, the unarmed multinational squad of six professed their optimism. "We are going to organize ourselves in order to be ready to do our task as soon as possible," the leader of the advance guard, Col. Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco, told reporters at a Damascus hotel before meeting Syrian officials in the capital.

"All peacekeepers are optimistic," he added when asked if he was hopeful an observer mission that will be expanded to 250 could cement a truce marked by persistent, sporadic violence.

Security forces shot dead the two civilians when they opened fire on a car in the central city of Hama, said the Observatory, adding a third passenger died later of wounds.

Elsewhere, fierce gunfights broke out at dawn between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and rebels in the northwestern city of Idlib, the Britain-based group said.

Four civilians were shot dead by security forces during the gunfight.

In the same province, security forces killed a 16-year-old youth after it opened fire at random in the village of Khatab, said the Observatory. Security forces also shot dead a civilian in the town of Inkhel, southern Daraa province, where the uprising against Assad’s iron-fisted rule erupted in March 2011.

Meanwhile, regime forces shelled the rebel neighborhoods of Khaldiyeh and Bayyada in the central city of Homs.

The Observatory said the areas were being targeted by mortars as the army attempted to seize control of the few old districts of the flashpoint city that remain held by rebels.

The security forces now control some 70 percent of Homs, which has seen some of the biggest losses of life of the 13-month uprising in Syria.

On Sunday, regime forces and pro-Assad gunmen killed nine civilians, bringing to 41 the number of people killed since Thursday, the day a UN-backed cease-fire entered into force. The six observers who arrived are the first of 30 monitors who were approved by the UN Security Council in a vote Saturday. The others are expected to arrive in coming days.

The United Nations Security Council voted on Saturday to authorize the deployment of up to 30 unarmed observers in the first resolution on Syria the 15-nation council has managed to approve unanimously since the uprising erupted in March 2011.

Russia and China have previously blocked Western attempts to pass Security Council resolutions on Syria, notably two resolutions condemning the Assad government.

The advance mission will “try to make concrete proposals by the 18th of April for an official observer mission,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told UN radio in Geneva.