White House: Syria cease-fire not working

A Syrian cease-fire is not working and government and other groups may need to make new decisions to seek an end to the bloodshed, the White House said. \"If the regime\'s intransigence continues, the international community is going to have to admit defeat and work to address the serious threat to peace and stability being perpetrated by the Assad regime,\" White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Thursday, after Syrian security forces stormed an anti-government protest at Aleppo University, killing at least four students -- including one heaved out a fifth-floor window -- and forcing the state-run school to close, activists and opposition groups said. If the international community admits the peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan last month has failed, Washington will work with the Security Council and countries and groups outside the Security Council to find a \"political transition,\" Carney said, adding such a transition was \"urgently needed.\" \"It is clear, and we will not deny, that the plan has not been succeeding thus far and that the regime has made no effort to take any of the steps required under the Annan plan, including moving toward the implementation of a full cease-fire,\" he said. The Obama administration hopes the Annan plan succeeds, Carney added. But \"based on the evidence,\" the administration remains \"highly skeptical of Assad\'s willingness to meet the conditions of that plan because he has so clearly failed to meet them thus far.\" Aleppo University -- Syria\'s second-largest after the University of Damascus, with 61,000 undergraduate students, more than 1,500 graduate students and some 2,400 faculty members -- said it would suspend classes until final exams May 13. It said it closed the student dormitories that Syrian forces stormed overnight Wednesday into Thursday, firing tear gas and then live ammunition, and arresting scores of people, after some 1,500 students protested against President Bashar Assad\'s regime.