General Robert Mood made the announcement
UN monitors in Syria have suspended operations because of increasing violence over the past 10 days between President Bashar al Assad's supporters and rebels seeking his overthrow.
"The observers will not be conducting patrols and will stay in their locations until further notice," General Robert Mood, the head of the UN observer mission, said in a statement.
The rising violence was impeding the 300 unarmed UN monitors from carrying out their mandate to observe an April 12 ceasefire deal, which has failed to halt the violence, the general said.
"This suspension will be reviewed on a daily basis. Operations will resume when we see the situation fit for us to carry out our mandated activities," he said.
Hundreds of people, including civilians, rebels and government forces, are reported to have been killed in the two months since international mediator Kofi Annan's ceasefire deal was supposed to come into effect.
Shots were last week fired at a car carrying UN observers after they were turned away from the town of Haffa by angry supporters of President Assad who threw stones and metal rods at their convoy, a spokeswoman for the monitors said
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