Al Arabiya, 26 Dec 2011 – A first group of Arab League observers are due in Syria Monday to monitor a deal to end nine months of deadly violence as activists report new deaths in the government’s crackdown on a nine-month uprising.
Intensive shelling was reported on Bab Amro in Syria on Monday and as many as 23 people have been killed mostly in Homs, Al Arabiya reported citing Syrian activists.
Five days of shelling Bab Amro left 45 people dead and 250 others injured, Syrian activists said.
A source at the mission told Reuters that the team will start its mission in Syria by visiting the turbulent city of Homs on Tuesday. “It also will visit the capital Damascus, Hama and Idlib on Tuesday,” the source said.
The Arab mission, that consists of around 50 politicians, lawmakers and military officials, is headed by Maj. Gen. Mohammed Mustapha al-Daby. The is scheduled to tour Syrian cities in order to prepare a report, to be referred to the Arab League Secretariat as well as the Syrian government, according to Al Arabiya.
A nine-member advance team of Arab monitors arrived on Thursday to pave the way for the observer mission to oversee the deal aimed at ending the crackdown, which the U.N. estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.
Arab League Assistant Secretary General Samir Seif al-Yazal, heading the nine-member advance team, said the first group of observers would leave for Damascus on Monday.
They will eventually number between 150 and 200.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdessy said that the main mission of the Arab team is to “observe” and not to “inspect,” Al Arabiya reported.
The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on Nov. 2 that also calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.
But since signing the agreement, the Assad regime has been accused of pressing on with its crackdown on dissent.
Meanwhile, Tunisian President Moncef al-Marzouqi called on the Syrian opposition to give the chance for President Bashar al-Assad to leave the country peacefully.
In an interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily, Marzouqi said “they shouldn’t encircle the wounded tiger for the four sides….he should have a way out. He should be frankly told that he has only one month to leave power peacefully.”
Marzouqi also said that in case of Assad’s departure, he should not be referred to the International Criminal Court.
Barbaric massacre
The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) called Sunday for the observers to dispatch without fail to Homs and other hot spots of the government’s bloody crackdown on dissent.
“Since early this morning, the (Homs) neighborhood of Baba Amr has been under a tight siege and the threat of military invasion by an estimated 4,000 soldiers,” said the SNC, the main umbrella group of opponents of Assad, according to AFP.
“The Syrian National Council demands that the Arab League observers go to Homs immediately, specifically to the besieged neighborhoods, to fulfill their stated mission,” it added in a statement.
“I call upon the Arab League to ask the Security Council to adopt its plan in order to increase possibilities of its success and avoid giving the regime an opportunity not to carry out its obligations,” Burhan Ghalioun, the Paris-based leader of the Syrian National Council, said in a televised speech marking Christmas.
The opposition council “holds the international community to its responsibilities and asks them to use all available means to put an end to the tragedies experienced by the Syrian people,” he added, according to The Assciated Press.
“The barbaric massacre must stop now,” Ghalioun said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces pounded Baba Amr with mortar and heavy machinegun fire, killing an undetermined number of people and wounding 124 others.
It earlier reported one civilian killed in the city’s Karm al-Zeitun district.
The Observatory said 26 people were arrested and tortured in public in nearby Rastan.
The central city of Homs has been a focal point of the Assad government’s crackdown on anti-regime demonstrations, as well as the site of fierce clashes between the army and deserters.
“We demand that the observers go to all the hot spots in Syria, or withdraw and conclude their mission if it is not possible for them to do so,” the SNC said.
“We hold the Arab League and the international community accountable for the massacres and bloodshed committed by the regime in Syria,” the council added.
Armed terrorists
Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the Arab League observers to vindicate his government’s contention that the violence is the work of “armed terrorists.”
Western governments and rights watchdogs blame Assad’s regime for the bloodshed.
Opposition leaders charge that Syria agreed to the mission after weeks of prevarication in a “ploy” to head off a threat by the 22-member league to go to the U.N. Security Council over the crackdown.
Muallem met the advance team of Arab League officials on Saturday, in talks the ministry’s spokesman called “positive.”
The SNC and human rights activists have charged that the Syrian government was behind twin suicide bomb attacks on Friday that killed 44 people in Damascus.
Assad’s regime has blamed the attacks on “terrorist organizations,” including al-Qaeda, although it has not said how it reached such a conclusion.
The SNC said “the Syrian regime, alone, bears all the direct responsibility for the two terrorist explosions.”
It said the government was trying to create the impression “that it faces danger coming from abroad and not a popular revolution demanding freedom and dignity.”
The Observatory demanded the Arab League “immediately head to the town of Hula to document this flagrant violation of human rights which is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in Syria.”
