As much of the world continues to look on in outrage as the Syrian regime continues its bloody campaign against dissent in the country, the mettle of many of the world’s leaders will be put to the test today.

At 6am this morning, a second stage of a United Nations- and Arab League-brokered ceasefire, this time backed by all the UN’s Security Council’s 15 members – including Syria’s allies China and Russia – comes into force.

But hopes that the Syrian regime would fall in line by tomorrow morning were very faint indeed yesterday after the regime failed to meet the Tuesday deadline by which it was to have pulled its troops and tanks out of civilian areas.

But the bloody assault on Syrian civilians continued unrelenting yesterday.

In fact, since accepting Annan’s six-point peace plan on 27 March, the regime appears to have done precious little but to have played for time while simply increasing its attacks on its opponents.

According to the UN peace plan, drawn up by former secretary general and UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, the drawback of Syrian forces was to have been followed by a full ceasefire by both sides within 48 hours, by this morning. The ceasefire was to then lead to an observer mission and talks between both sides over the country’s future.

Should the Syrian regime not honour the terms of the ceasefire by this morning, the international community will have run out of cards to play in this current round. Sanctions and other attempts to tame the Syrian regime have had no effect whatsoever and the United Nations has already ruled out the type of military intervention that it had approved last year in Libya and which had helped in no small way the plight of the Libyan rebel fighters.

But the onslaught by Syrian President Bashar Assad continues unabated yesterday and what the regime was describing as a pullout from hostilities appeared to be little more than a thinly-disguised redeployment of troops to other areas.

And the killing continued yesterday in the face of the peace plan and even though the regime had agreed to the UN plan, violence has only grown worse over the last week. In fact, while the UN estimates that at least 9,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began last March, activists claimed yesterday that some 1,000 people had been slain by the regime’s tanks, machine guns and snipers over the last eight days alone.

Western world leaders have pinned their hopes on diplomatic pressure being exerted by Kofi Annan, and most are apparently unwilling to venture militarily into another Arab nation in conflict. US Senator John McCain, however, has called on the Obama administration to launch US airstrikes to end Assad’s brutal crackdown.

As experience from the Libyan uprising has shown, ceasefire agreements are often hardly worth the paper; if the regime’s continued assaults on civilians in the face of the ceasefire agreement is anything to go by, it will not be long before nothing short of concrete, coercive and concerted action by the international community will make the regime change its ways.