The chief of the UN monitoring group said on Thursday that Syria was not on track for peace, adding that the violence was escalating in the crisis-hit country.

The chief of the UN monitoring group said on Thursday that Syria was not on track for peace, adding that the violence was escalating in the crisis-hit country.

"It pains me to say, but we are not on the track for peace in Syria, and the escalations we have witnessed in Damascus over the past few days is a testimony to that," Major General Robert Mood, head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria, said in a statement to reporters.

"I expressed my condemnation of the attack yesterday to the Syria government. I call on the parties to end the bloodshed and violence in all its forms, and recommit to a peaceful solution to this conflict," he said.

The UN truce observer mission's mandate is due to expire on Friday, Mood said, adding that his own mission as team head "will expire within days."