Syria Violence Kills 28 as Arab League Calls Meeting on Monitors
Arab foreign ministers working on the Syrian crisis will meet in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the first report by an observer mission in Damascus, the Arab League said on Tuesday, as fresh violence killed 10 civilians and 18 regime troops, according to activists and a rights watchdog.
"The Arab League committee on Syria will meet Saturday at the Arab League headquarters," Assistant Secretary General Ahmed Ben Hilli told reporters.
"The meeting will discuss a preliminary report by the head of the observer mission in Syria, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, over the most important aspects collected by the team on the ground," Ben Hilli said.
The monitors are in Damascus as part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria, which calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.
The mission has already been the focus of controversy since a first team of 50 observers arrived on December 26, with activists saying the authorities are continuing to press a brutal crackdown on dissent despite the presence of the monitors.
And the Arab Parliament, an advisory body to the League, has even called for the observer mission to be withdrawn because of the relentless violence.
But Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi has defended the mission saying it had secured the release of political prisoners and the withdrawal of tanks from cities.
Meanwhile, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces shot dead four civilians in the flashpoint central province of Homs, four in the central province of Hama and two in the countryside around Damascus.
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed three civilians in Homs, even as state television reported observers were in the Homs region.
The group also reported two more civilian deaths in Hama, and said 18 members of the security services died during clashes with army deserters in the southern city of Daraa.
According to the U.N.'s latest estimates given in December, more than 5,000 people have been killed in the Assad regime's crackdown on dissent since mid-March.
Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet
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