Violence keeps Syria on edge, Arab mission in doubt
Last edited Fri Jan 20, 2012, 09:15 AM - Edit history (1)
AMMAN | Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:54am EST
AMMAN (Reuters) - Scattered violence broke out on Friday in Syria, where Arab peace monitors have completed a month-long mission, ahead of Muslim prayers that are often followed by demonstrations for and against President Bashar al-Assad.
Security forces prevented prayers at the Omari mosque in the southern town of Deraa, cradle of a 10-month-old anti-Assad revolt, for the fifth Friday in a row, activists said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a heavy security presence around mosques in the port city of Latakia and said shooting had erupted in several other restive towns.
The British-based group said a security officer had been assassinated in Deraa, possibly because he had changed sides. In the northwestern province of Idlib, security forces returned the bodies of six people who had disappeared two days earlier.
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Syria activists divided over value of monitors
DAMASCUS: The mandate of a much-criticised Arab League monitoring mission in Syria has expired amid calls from opposition activists to abandon the effort as a failure.
Arab ministers are due to meet tomorrow to decide whether to extend the mission for another month or seek tougher action against the government led by the President, Bashar al-Assad, whose crackdown on a 10-month-old uprising has so far left more than 5000 people dead.
The estimated 125 monitors who are still in the country are awaiting the league's decision in their hotels after delivering a report on their activities on Thursday. About 40 monitors have already left because they felt unsafe, an Arab League official in Cairo said.
Many activists and human rights groups, who initially campaigned for monitors to be admitted to the country, now say they want Arab leaders to give up the mission and refer the Syria crisis to the United Nations Security Council in the hope of securing tougher world condemnation of the crackdown.
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The regional bloc will decide on its next move at a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday. Two senior Arab League senior officials told the Associated Press news agency that the organisation is likely to extend its monitoring mission, initiated to verify whether an Arab peace plan was working, after several nations that had been opposed to the extension changed their position in recent days.
The officials said on Friday that the direction within the Arab League is to keep the mission in place as the international community is not yet ready for "escalation" to an intervention in Syria. NATO's most senior officer said on Thursday that the alliance was not planning or even "thinking" of intervening in Syria.
The head of the opposition Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghaliun, headed to Cairo to lobby the Arab ministers to refer the observer mission's findings to the UN Security Council.
Human Rights Watch said there was no sign of any let-up in the authorities' crackdown, with activists reporting 506 civilians killed by the security forces and a further 490 detained since their deployment on December 26.
Arab observer have visited many towns but the mission has been criticised since killings have not stopped
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/2012120104749390506.html
