Violence in Syria spilled across borders into Turkey and Lebanon as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime spurned today’s United Nations deadline for a cease-fire. Syrian activists reported military attacks on two towns Tuesday, even as the government claimed its military forces have begun pulling out of some towns in compliance with a U.N.-brokered truce deal.

Syrian government shelling and offensives against rebel-held towns killed dozens of people across the country on Saturday, activists said, as the U.S. posted online satellite images of troop deployments that cast further doubt on whether the regime intends to comply with an internationally sponsored peace plan.

The conflict in Syria, now in its second year, has left more than 9,000 people dead by UN estimates and turned the country into a battleground between Sunni Muslim-led Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran. Syria’s borders with Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey have raised the stakes for governments across the region.

The Observatory said regime troops fired shells at the town of Mariah in northwestern Syria on Tuesday. Activists also said the central city of Homs was struck by mortar rounds and that forces carried out arrests in the Damascus suburb of Harasta. Mohammed Saeed, a resident of the Damascus suburb of Douma, said tanks that routinely patrol the streets were not visible Tuesday, April 10, 2012.

On Monday, Syrian forces opened fire across the Turkish and Lebanese borders, killing a TV journalist in Lebanon and wounding at least six people in a refugee camp in Turkey. Witnesses told The Associated Press that two people were killed in the shooting.