`Full team of 30 monitors in Syria by Monday`

Every effort is being made to deploy the full mission of up to 300 observers in Syria, the spokesman for Kofi Annan said.

Geneva: Fifteen more ceasefire monitors of a total advance team of 30 are expected to be in Syria by Monday and every effort is being made to deploy the full mission of up to 300 observers, the spokesman for international mediator Kofi Annan said on Friday.

"We expect the 30 will be on the ground by the end of April, on Monday," Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in Geneva.

"There is no delay... It is a whole process," he said. "They are deploying at remarkable speed."

Syria`s government and rebels have traded blame for a huge explosion which killed 16 people in Hama on Wednesday, as a two-week-old UN-backed ceasefire looked increasingly fragile.

Bureau Report