ANTIQUES SHOPS

U.N. monitors, who have been trying to enter the town after several days of intense clashes between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebel fighters, were forced to turn back on Tuesday when a mob attacked them.

Rebels pulled out of the town this week, but joined the United States in warning that some of the thousands of remaining citizens could be killed in cold blood.

A Reuters photographer saw smoke rising from destroyed buildings and burnt-out cars in Haffeh, where there were signs of heavy bombardment. Only a handful of residents were in evidence, and one said 26,000 people had fled.

The main offices of the ruling Baath party, the town's post office and a branch of the Ministry of Agriculture had also been burnt down. A body lay abandoned on the pavement and abandoned shops stood open with boxes of vegetables still out in front.

The uprising against Assad's autocratic rule began as a peaceful pro-democracy movement in March 2011 but has increasingly given way, after a bloody crackdown by Assad's forces, to an armed insurgency.

The United Nations says more than 10,000 people have been killed by government forces, while Syria says some 2,600 members of the security forces have been killed by foreign-backed "Islamist terrorists."

With a ceasefire brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan failing to take hold, world powers are divided over the next move.

Russia and China, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council with veto power, have blocked efforts by Western powers to condemn Assad or call for his removal.

Diplomats said major powers were working towards holding a crisis meeting on Syria in Geneva on June 30 to try to get the plan back on track.

IRAN THE STICKING POINT

Annan, the United Nations-Arab League mediator, has called for a "Contact Group" to convened as soon as possible, but the United States is opposed to the involvement of Iran, Syria's main ally in the region.

"It is not confirmed but people are still working toward something on the 30th," a diplomat told Reuters. "We're moving toward the 30th but nothing is confirmed," said another. But a third said Iran's participation was still a sticking point.

Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said this week that if the Contact Group held a meeting, it would aim to "give teeth" to the Annan plan, not to create a new one.

He said Annan was in "urgent and intensive consultations with member states in order to reach consensus on the shape and formula of the Contact Group meeting".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week that Washington had information that Russia was in the process of supplying Syria with helicopters - which have been used in government assaults on towns and cities.

Syria's ambassador to Moscow told Reuters on Thursday that Russia was "not delivering any helicopters to Syria".

Meanwhile, violence raged across Syria.

The army fired heavy artillery on the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, killing at least 11 people, after a ground offensive met heavy resistance, opposition sources said.

The overnight barrage from nearby hills followed the withdrawal of hundreds of troops backed by tanks that had entered the city on Wednesday to root out rebels, the sources said. About 200 people were wounded in the shelling, they said.

In southern Damascus, a car bomb exploded in a car park near the gold-domed Shi'ite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, wounding two people, activists and state media said.

The blast gouged a deep crater in the tarmac, wrecked several buses and smashed car windows across a wide area, the state news agency SANA reported.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Nastassia Astrasheuskaya and Thomas Grove in Moscow, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Houses were burnt down late on Wednesday in two villages near the Bangladesh border, but there were no reports of further deaths. Scores of people are feared to have been killed in the rioting that broke out in Rakhine state on June 8.

Places that were flashpoints earlier in the week, including the state capital Sittwe, were quiet as violence started to subside after days of arson attacks and killing that have presented reformist President Thein Sein with one of his biggest challenges since taking office last year.

"Tensions between the two groups have eased. There are around 20,000 refugees in Sittwe. Most of them are from the villages where people fled in fear of the violence," Aung Myat Kyaw, a senator for Rakhine state, told Reuters.

"They are in need of food and, because of the heavy rain, there are concerns about the refugees' health and whether they have enough shelter," he added.

The violence had killed 21 people as of Monday, state media said, but activists fear the death toll could be much higher. At least 1,600 houses have been burnt down.

The army has taken hundreds of Rohingyas to Muslim villages outside Sittwe to ensure their safety.

"They are worried for their lives. The army is there so their life is secure," said Shwe Maung, a Muslim member of parliament for the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party. "There are still so many Rohingyas in downtown Sittwe and they are afraid of being attacked."

The United Nations and a medical aid group said this week they were pulling staff out of the area because of the violence. U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, travelled to the area on Wednesday.

DELICATE SITUATION

Speaking at an International Labour Organization conference in Geneva, the first stop on a five-nation European tour, Myanmar Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed concern about the unrest and said laws needed to be enforced to prevent such conflicts from taking place.

"Without the rule of law, such communal strife will only continue," she told a news conference.

"The present situation will have to be handled with delicacy and sensitivity and we need the cooperation of all people concerned to rebuild the peace that we want for our country."

Food shortages could last three to four days as poor roads and infrastructure delayed supplies from aid organisations, said Htun Myit Thein of the Wan Latt Foundation, which is managing three camps that together hold about 12,000 people in Sittwe.

"The camps aren't clean enough and some of the men are getting ill," he said. "So far there is no support from the government or international groups."

It is unclear what sparked the rioting. Relations between the two communities have been uneasy for generations and tension flared last month after the gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman that was blamed on Muslims.

That led to the killing of 10 Muslims in reprisal on June 3, when a Buddhist mob stopped a bus they were travelling on. The passengers had no connection to the murdered woman. State media said three Muslims are on trial for the woman's death.

The violence follows a year of dramatic political change after nearly 50 years of repressive military rule, which includes the release of hundreds of political prisoners and truces with ethnic minority rebels.

The government has also allowed trade unions and promised to get rid of forced labour. Recognising this progress, the International Labour Organization lifted restrictions on Myanmar on Wednesday.

The communal violence in Rakhine state and the international reaction may prompt further change: the Rohingyas are not included among the officially recognised ethnic groups of Myanmar but Thein Sein may be forced to improve their plight.

Up to 800,000 Rohingyas live along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh in abject conditions. Neither country recognises them as citizens and the Bangladeshi authorities have turned away boats of Rohingyas fleeing the violence this week.

(Reporting by Reuters staff reporters; Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Martin Petty and Robert Birsel)