A Sudanese general arrived in Damascus Sunday to head an Arab League
observer mission to Syria, as the country's top opposition leader urged
the group to bring the United Nations into the effort to stop the
government's bloody crackdown on dissent.
General Mohammed
al-Dabi traveled to Syria after meeting Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby
in Cairo, where he outlined a "road map" for the mission's work. A group
of 50 more monitors is expected to arrive Monday.
A young Syrian Kurd protests outside the Arab League offices in an eastern neighborhood of the Lebanese capital Beirut on December 25, 2011. |
Russia and China have blocked efforts by Western powers to use the Council to condemn the Syrian government and impose sanctions on it for continuing the crackdown.
Ghalioun also called on the league to send observers to the besieged city of Homs and other locations where government troops are intensifying a bloody crackdown on dissent.
Syria agreed to the 150-member observer mission under pressure from the Arab League, which wants to monitor Syrian compliance with a plan requiring the government to end its deadly suppression of a nine-month pro-democracy uprising.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told VOA that pro-Assad forces killed at least six people in Homs on Sunday in shelling and shooting attacks. It said government forces also killed three people in the northeastern town of Deir Ezzor.
London-based Observatory spokesman Mousab Azzawi said Syrian military helicopters were flying over Homs to try to locate the signals of satellite phones used by local activists to inform the rights group about the crackdown.
It is not possible to independently verify casualty figures in Syria because the government bars international journalists from operating freely in the country.
The United Nations estimates 5,000 people have been killed in violence linked to the uprising since it began in March with protests against Mr. Assad's 11-year autocratic rule. Syria says "armed terrorists" are driving the revolt and accuses them of killing 2,000 security personnel during that period.
Source Voanews.com
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