Arab League to decide on Syria mission’s fate

mission official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mission’s observers, entrusted with monitoring the government’s implementation of a peace plan aimed at ending violence in the country, increased from 165 to 300. Another source close to Nabil Elaraby, the head of the Arab League, said ministers could decide to offer the additional support in the form of UN or military experts.
The meeting comes amid reports of clashes between Syrian government troops and army defectors in Douma, a suburb of the capital, Damascus, on Saturday night.
“Apparently there were some clashes between the regime’s army and the FSA (Free Syrian Army) but the FSA has gone back to its positions,” Rafif Jouejati, a spokeswoman for the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network, said.
She said there had been an explosion in the area, apparently targeting a riot police vehicle.
Activists say that hundreds of people have been killed since the monitors arrived in Syria, with some reporting the deaths of as many as 740 civilians in the last month.
Critics say the Arab mission has only provided diplomatic cover for President Bashar al-Assad to pursue a crackdown that has already killed more than 5 000 people since anti-government protests erupted in March 2011, according to a UN count.
The mission’s chief, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi of Sudan, is satisfied with the observers’ achievements so far, the mission’s deputy chief of operations, Ali Jarush, said.
“Everything indicates the observer mission in Syria will be extended by a month,” Jarush said.
“Dabi sees that in the last phase the necessary thrust (of the operation) was achieved after more monitors were deployed and fanned across 20 areas and after they were provided with equipment and logistics which they previously lacked.”
Syria’s main opposition bloc, the Syrian National Council (SNC), said, however that Dabi’s report would not be credible.- Al Jazeera.