Thursday, 19 April 2012

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that the U.N. observer mission in Syria would require between 300 and 400 people to oversee the country properly. (Reuters)

By Al Arabiya with Agencies

A photo released by Higher Committee of the Syrian Revolution allegedly shows destruction in Baba Amr neighborhood of the flashpoint central Syrian city of Homs on March 11, 2012. (AFP Photo/ Higher Committee of The Syrian Revolution).

DAMASCUS: Two huge bomb blasts killed at least 27 people in Syria’s capital on Saturday, as special envoy Kofi Annan warned of regional fallout from the year-long bloodshed.

An Arab diplomat told AFP Saudi Arabia has started delivering arms to Syrian rebels through Jordan, a claim denied by Amman, while rival Iran is already suspected of sending weapons to its Syrian regime allies.

State television said the early morning “terrorist” attacks, apparently car bombings timed minutes apart, had targeted police headquarters in the Duwar Al-Jamarek area and air force intelligence offices in Al-Qasaa district.

The explosions killed 27 people, mainly civilians, and wounded 140 civilians and security personnel, the interior ministry said.

As angry residents vented their fury at Arab supporters of anti-regime activists, the state broadcaster ran footage of a charred body inside the mangled remains of a smouldering vehicle in Duwar Al-Jamarek.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the bomb blasts and urged an end to the violence.

Extending his condolences to the bereaved families, “the secretary general calls for all violence to cease immediately,” a statement released by his office said.

From Paris, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said: “France condemns all acts of terrorism, which cannot be justified under any circumstances.”
France has been at the forefront of calls for Assad to quit.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr affirmed Cairo’s “fixed position against terrorism in any form, regardless of the reasons behind it.”
Bombings have hit Syria’s major cities in recent months, provoking
mounting concern that Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of the uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad.

Syria’s opposition, however, has accused the regime of stage-managing the attacks.

Commentators on state television blamed Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Assad’s fiercest Arab critics over his regime’s deadly crackdown on dissent since March 2011. Both countries have called for rebels to be armed.

“Saudi Arabia is sending us terrorists,” a resident of the devastated areas said on television.

Another said “these are the friends… of the Istanbul council,” referring to the opposition Syrian National Council set up in the Turkish city last August.

An Arab diplomat told AFP that Saudi Arabia, which closed its embassy in Damascus this week, was delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels.

“Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the (rebel) Free Syrian Army,” the diplomat said, on condition of anonymity. “This is a Saudi initiative to stop the massacres in Syria.”

Jordan rejected the report.
“Jordan categorically denies the report,” government spokesman and information minister Rakan Majali told AFP. “This is completely baseless.”
Iraq, another neighbour of Syria, has informed Tehran it will not allow arms shipments to the country to pass through or over its territory, Baghdad government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said on Saturday.

The United States has said it was concerned that Iranian cargo flights over Iraq to Syria could be carrying arms to help Damascus crush protests.

Tehran on Saturday condemned the Damascus blasts, blaming them on unnamed countries supplying arms to Syrian rebels, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.

On Friday, UN-Arab League peace envoy Annan warned of a regional “escalation” of the Syria conflict and urged the UN Security Council to close ranks to put pressure on Assad.

The former United Nations chief, who met Assad in Damascus last weekend, has ordered a team of UN experts to Syria to discuss a possible ceasefire and international monitoring mission, his spokesman said.

Permanent Security Council members Russian and China have twice vetoed Security Council resolutions on the Syrian crisis that they said were unbalanced.

Syria’s foreign ministry said the country would cooperate with Annan and at the same time pursue its crackdown on “armed terrorist gangs” it blames for the bloodshed.

Thousands of anti-government protesters called on Friday for foreign military intervention as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 18 people were killed nationwide.

In London on Saturday, British photographer Paul Conroy — wounded in a bombardment in Homs last month that killed his Sunday Times colleague Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik — also urged military intervention.

“It’s about life and death now. We must put enclaves in place, defend them from the air and the ground and save lives. Diplomacy, I’m afraid, has had its chance. It’s failed,” Conroy told the BBC.

In Washington, thousands of protesters gathered outside the White House to demand that the United States “stop the massacre in Syria.”

The Britain-based Observatory said funerals were held on Saturday for two people killed during a Friday protest at Al-Raqqa in the northeast and security forces opened fire on mourners, killing another two people.

Huge rallies in support of Assad were held in Damascus and other major cities on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the uprising that monitors say has cost more than 9,100 lives in 12 months.

Apart from Annan’s technical team, the UN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are to send experts to Damascus on a Syrian government-led humanitarian mission to protest cities devastated in shelling by security forces.

The team members will head to Damascus from New York and Geneva on Monday, Annan’s spokesman said.

PARIS (Reuters) - France cannot accept a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria that would assign responsibility for the violence equally to the Syrian government and its opponents, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said on Friday.

The five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Morocco met behind closed doors on Tuesday to discuss a U.S.-drafted resolution urging an end to the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters.

Russia’s response to the new text hinges on whether it believes the text puts enough pressure on the Syrian opposition. Moscow and China have blocked two resolutions, backed by Arab countries and the West, that blamed President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the violence.

“Our objective is a real resolution,” Valero told reporters. “We do not want a resolution that sends the wrong message because there is no equivalence between the savage repression that Bashar al-Assad’s clan has perpetuated for months and the legitimate desire of the Syrian people for the respect of their rights.

It remains unclear whether the U.S. draft resolution has any chance of success in the 15-nation council, which has been deadlocked over Syria’s military operations against pro-democracy protesters for almost a year.

The U.S. draft, obtained by Reuters, demands “unhindered humanitarian access” and “condemns the continued widespread, systematic, and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities and demands that the Syrian government immediately put an end to such violations.”

Valero said Paris wanted a resolution that firmly placed the responsibility for the violence on the Syrian security forces, allowed humanitarian access, promoted a political transition and ensured there would be no impunity for those who repressed the Syrian people.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe will go to New York on Sunday to attend a Security Council ministerial meeting that will discuss the Arab Spring, and is also due to hold talks on Syria.

BRITAIN and its Western allies came under intense pressure last night to drop their opposition to military intervention in the crisis in Syria, as Saudi Arabia called directly for the arming of the opposition.

The Associated Press

BEIRUT - A French photojournalist and a prominent American war correspondent working for a British newspaper were killed Wednesday by Syrian shelling of the opposition stronghold Homs as President Bashar Assad’s regime escalated its attacks on rebel bases by strafing from helicopter gunships, activists said.

Weeks of withering barrages on the central city of Homs have failed to drive out opposition factions that include rebel soldiers who fled Assad’s forces. Hundreds have died in the siege and the latest deaths further galvanized international pressure on Assad, who appears intent on widening his military crackdowns despite the risk of pushing Syria toward full-scale civil war.

“This tragic incident is another example of the shameless brutality of the Assad regime.” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said of the journalists killed.

“That’s enough now, the regime must go,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy after his government confirmed the two deaths.

French spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse identified those killed as French photojournalist Remi Ochlik and American reporter Marie Colvin, who was working for Britain’s Sunday Times.

France’s Foreign Minister, Alain Juppe, said the attacks show the “increasingly intolerable repression” by Syrian forces. French Communication Minister Frederic Mitterrand said of the journalists killed: “It’s abominable.”

Syrian activists said at least two other Western journalists - French reporter Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro and British photographer Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times - were wounded in Wednesday’s shelling, which claimed at least 13 lives.

The Syrian military has intensified its attacks on Homs in the past few days, aiming to retake rebel-held neighborhoods that have become powerful symbols of resistance to Assad’s rule. For the government in Damascus, Homs is a critical battleground to maintain its control of Syria’s third-largest city and keep more rebel pockets from growing elsewhere.

In the northwestern restive province of Idlib, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that Syrian army helicopters fitted with machine guns opened fire on the village of Ifis. Idlib is a main base of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Another opposition group, the Local Coordination Committees, said troops conducted raids in the Damascus district of Mazzeh district and the suburb Jobar, where dozens of people were detained. In Jobar, the group said troops broke doors of homes and shops and set up checkpoints.

The group also said Syrian troops backed by tanks stormed the southern village of Hirak and launched a wave of arrests.

The Obama administration opened the door slightly Tuesday to international military assistance for Syria’s rebels, with officials saying new tactics may have to be explored if Assad continues to defy pressure to halt a brutal crackdown on dissenters that has raged for 11 months and killed thousands.

The White House and State Department said they still hope for a political solution. But faced with the daily onslaught by the Assad regime against Syrian civilians, officials dropped the administration’s previous strident opposition to arming anti-regime forces. It remained unclear, though, what, if any, role the U.S. might play in providing such aid.

A Homs-based activist, Omar Shaker, said the journalists were killed when several rockets hit a garden of a house used by activists and journalists in the besieged Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, which has come under weeks of heavy bombardment by forces from Assad’s regime. At least 13 people were killed in Wednesday’s shelling, including the journalists, activists said.

The U.N. estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in repression by the regime of President Bashar Assad against a popular uprising that began 11 months ago. Syrian activists, however, put the death toll at more than 7,300.

He added that intense Syrian troops shelling with tanks and artilleries began at 6:30 a.m. and was continuing hours later. He said the apartment used by journalists was hit around 10 a.m.

An amateur video posted online by activist showed what they claimed were bodies of two people in the middle of a heavily damaged house. It said they were of the journalists. One of the dead was wearing what appeared to be a flak jacket.

Many foreign journalists have been sneaking into Syria illegally in the past months with the help of smugglers from Lebanon and Turkey. Although the Syrian government has allowed some journalists into the country their movement is tightly controlled by Information Ministry minders.

Colvin, from Oyster Bay, New York, was in her 50s and a veteran foreign correspondent for Britain’s Sunday Times for the past two decades. She was instantly recognizable for an eye patch worn after being injured covering conflicts in Sri Lanka in 2001.

Colvin said she would not “hang up my flak jacket” even after the eye injury.

“So, was I stupid? Stupid I would feel writing a column about the dinner party I went to last night,” she wrote in the Sunday Times after the attack. “Equally, I’d rather be in that middle ground between a desk job and getting shot, no offense to desk jobs.

In Geneva, the International Red Cross said it was holding talks with members of the opposition Syrian National Council. The ICRC called Tuesday for a daily two-hour halt to fighting in Syria so it can bring emergency aid to affected areas and evacuate the wounded and sick.

Head of ICRI operations for the Middle East, Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the ICRC had almost no contacts with opposition figures inside Syria.

The journalists’ deaths came a day after a Syrian sniper shot dead Rami al-Sayyed, a prominent activist in Baba Amr who was famous for posting online videos, Shaker and the Local Coordination Committees activist group said.

On Jan. 11, award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed in Homs. The 43-year-old correspondent for France-2 Television was the first Western journalist to die since the uprising began in March. Syrian authorities have said he was killed in a grenade attack carried out by opposition forces - a claim questioned by the French government, human rights groups and the Syrian opposition.

Last week, New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid died of an apparent asthma attack in Syria after he sneaked in to cover the conflict.

PARIS, Jan 20 (KUNA) — The French Foreign Ministry said on Friday that a military option to resolve the Syrian crisis was “not valid” and was not a scenario being examined.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero indicated that France was in full support of the Arab League plan to end the crisis but both Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and his spokesman excluded military intervention or the deployment of Arab forces in Syria as has been proposed by Qatar.
“We are in direct dialogue with Qatar, which is playing a major role in mobilising the Arab League to put an end to the repression in Syria,” Valero remarked.
“For France, the military option is not valid,” he stressed.
Juppe had told the regional press earlier that a military intervention in Syria was not “a scenario” being looked at.
But France intends to remain active in denouncing the situation in Syria, the spokesman added, noting earlier statements to the diplomatic corps by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“France will not shut up faced with the Syrian scandal,” Valero quoted Sarkozy as telling diplomats.
The French official repeated his government’s position that “the conditions in which the (Arab League) observer mission is taking place are not satisfactory. Syria is not respecting the commitments it made relative to the Arab League”.
He said France would continue to pursue a “substantial resolution” in the UN Security Council on Syria and wants the Arab League to submit its forthcoming report on the observer mission to the Security Council.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 (KUNA) — The United Nations has approved an Arab League request to deploy human rights experts to Cairo in order to train monitors whose task will be to oversee the situation in Syria, a spokesman of the international organization said late on Monday.
The experts will be dispatched from the Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the details of how many experts and monitors, and when they will start the training will be worked out following the Arab ministerial Committee meeting scheduled for this Sunday in Cairo.
During that meeting, the Committee will assess the report to be presented by the Arab League teams already on the ground in Syria on whether the Assad regime is complying with the protocol it signed late last year with the League. the teams have been criticised by the Government and the Syrian opposition alike.
The idea to train Arab monitors was first discussed by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a meeting here earlier this month.
Sheikh Hamad told KUNA following that meeting “we are coming here for technical help and to see the experience the UN has, because this is the first time the Arab League is involved in sending monitors, and there are some mistakes.” Asked what kind of mistakes, he said “this is the first experience for us. I said we have to evaluate what sorts of mistakes we have (made). There is no doubt for me. I can see there are mistakes.” Damascus signed a protocol with the Arab League on December 19 by which the Government will stop the killings, pull the troops off the streets, release the detainees, let all the international media enter the country, and not to harass any person who speaks to the Arab monitors.
Over 5,000 civilians were killed in Syria since mid-March when protestors took to the streets calling for the fall of the Assad regime.
Meanwhile, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, suggested during an interview with 60 Minutes of the US network CBS last Sunday that an Arab military presence in Syria would stop the killing.
Asked whether he is for an Arab intervention, he said “for such a situation to stop the killing, some troops should go to stop the killing.” As leaders call for an end to the bloodshed, the killings continue in Syria.
Ban said in Abu Dhabi earlier on Monday that the situation has reached an “unacceptable” stage. “We cannot let this situation continue like this way. When leaders are disconnected from the reality, then this situation is inevitable.” He also called on the Security Council to speak in a “coherent manner” and expressed hope that its members “will handle this with a sense of seriousness and gravity.” Ban’s appeal came one day after French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said during a visit to Myanmar “The massacre (in Syria) continues, the silence of the Security Council too. This situation is becoming intolerable.” In a related matter, Syria’s ally - Russia - which vetoed a Council resolution on Syria last October, on Monday revived its draft resolution it first introduced in the Council in mid-December. The new version is complicated, does not take into consideration the amendments introduced by Council western members, and lacks any measures against the Assad regime. Positions look very far apart, diplomats said.
The first examination of the Russian draft this year will take place later today at the Russian mission to the UN at the level of experts.

PARIS, Jan 16 (KUNA) — France said on Monday that it continues to “fully support” the ongoing Arab League mission in Syria, saying this was “an important and difficult task” that even puts the monitors at risk, themselves.
“We continue to fully support the involvement and engagement of the Arab League to put an end to the repression in Syria, which has already caused 6, 000 deaths,” French deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said in answer to questions.
“The observer mission is engaged in an important and difficult task, as demonstrated by the unacceptable violence committed against certain observers last week.” Two Kuwaitis were among observers that were victims of violence and were slightly injured last week.
Nadal pointed out that since the Arab League observers were deployed two weeks ago, more than 400 people have died in violence in Syria at a time the observers were trying to halt the repression, get political prisoners freed, ensure the return of troops to their barracks and get access to Syria for the international media.
The French official also recalled his government’s efforts to get a UN Security Council resolution condemning the repression, with possible sanctions attached, but Russia and several other countries have blocked this move.
Nadal said that Foreign Minister Alain Juppe viewed “the silence in the Security Council as unacceptable.” “It is particularly important that the Arab League lead the way and is supported by the international community in order that Damascus, in effect, implements the four points of the crisis exit (strategy),” Nadal added.
“We reiterate our support for the Arab League,” he stressed, noting that a ministerial council meeting is to be held in the coming days.
This meeting is to examine different options open to the Arab League in its aim to put an end to the Syrian crisis, which is “a threat for the stability of Syria and the whole region,” the French official noted.

The Arab League mission sent to monitor unrest in Syria is unable to do its job properly, according to France, as a deadly bombing killed up to 25 in Damascus.

By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent

3:04PM GMT 06 Jan 2012

Some Syrian opposition members and Western countries have called for the creation of safe zones and humanitarian corridors in Syria, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé announced on 24 November that his country was seeking to create “humanitarian corridors” in Syria in response to demands by the Syrian opposition, adding that military action might be required to protect caravans transporting goods through these corridors.

Juppé said France would discuss the issue with its EU partners, the UN and Arab League, adding that the US and France had reached “common ground” on creating the corridors.

Borhan Ghalioun, chairman of the Syrian National Council (SNC) which represents the opposition abroad, had asked the French government to create humanitarian corridors in Syria “because there is a humanitarian crisis resulting from a scarcity of basic goods in the country,” Juppe said.

International law dictates that humanitarian corridors can enable international humanitarian aid organisations to transport essential goods to regions caught up in conflict, civil war or disasters.

The French government is considering establishing a secure corridor to neighbouring countries like Turkey, Lebanon, or Jordan, or even to an airport or seaport in Syria, in order to unload humanitarian aid shipments. International humanitarian relief groups could then distribute the aid and medical supplies to residential areas that need them, while international monitors could ensure that the Syrian authorities did not interfere in the operation.

Juppé said that the corridors would be difficult to implement and that they would require the approval of the Syrian government and an international mandate. Without approval from Damascus, the only way to carry out the idea would be by force and with UN support, he said.

“We can protect relief caravans by military force, but we are not at that point yet,” Juppé said, adding that it was likely that options other than military intervention would be pursued.

The UN said there was no urgency in creating the humanitarian corridors, even though more than 1.5 million Syrians are thought to be in need of emergency assistance. UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief Valerie Amos said that the Syrian Red Cross was better able to provide the food aid than international organisations.

The French proposal is not a new one, since members of the country’s opposition abroad and the Syrian Free Army (SFA) formed of defectors from the Syrian army have long asked for the creation of safe zones and no-fly zones in the country. There has also been a suggestion that safe zones should be created in the north of the country along the border with Turkey and in the south on the border with Jordan.

However, creating the corridors depends on factors that do not seem likely to come together in the short term, and the areas hosting such humanitarian corridors and safe zones inside Syria have not been decided.

No decisions have been made on who would secure such areas, or whether neighbouring countries would agree to such plans.

In the case of Libya, the regime of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi made it difficult for humanitarian aid to be distributed, and western countries were only able to do so after the imposition of a no-fly zone under UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

The Arab League has said it intends to ask the UN Security Council to take the necessary steps under the UN Charter to support efforts by the League to resolve the situation in Syria. The statement came after Damascus rejected the Arab peace initiative that had called for the withdrawal of army forces from Syrian towns, the release of tens of thousands of prisoners, and the launching of a dialogue with the opposition under the auspices of the League.

The indications are that the UN will be willing to support Arab League proposals to send a peace mission to observe conditions in Syria, where a nine-month crackdown against anti-regime protests has killed thousands and injured tens of thousands more.

However, Turkey, a neighbouring country that risks being drawn into the Syrian crisis, has said that it is unaware of the details of these proposals. Turkish sources suggest that there are still other options, adding that these should be pursued until the situation in Syria takes a turn for the worse.

The mountainous border region between Syria and Turkey extends over 900km, and there is no real military presence there apart from occasional observation posts. The Adana Agreement signed in 1998 between the two countries imposed a five-kilometre demilitarised zone inside the Syrian border, making it easier for Turkey to create a buffer zone if the idea were to receive international support.

Not everyone in the Syrian opposition agrees to the creation of safe zones and humanitarian corridors. “The proposal to create safe zones or humanitarian corridors in Syria is a political demand dressed up as a humanitarian request,” Nasser Al-Ghazali, director of the Damascus Centre for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

“It would propel the Syrian crisis down a path that serves international interests. It would not serve the interests of the Syrian people and their uprising for freedom and dignity.”

Al-Ghazali said that past experience had shown that creating humanitarian corridors “was unsuccessful and mostly resulted in immense suffering, as well as the partition of countries where this took place.”

“Creating buffer zones or humanitarian corridors and legitimising the actions of the SFA would be a magic formula to sharply increase the number of victims in Syria and partition the country.”

Al-Ghazali underscored the importance of protecting civilians in Syria from the regime crackdown. “Unbiased Arab and international monitors should be sent to Syria as a result of a decision by international humanitarian organisations and not the UN Security Council, with the support of the Arab League and the UN,” he said.

“This would be a precondition for defining in exact terms what protecting civilians means, and any decisions should include clear measures according to a short timeline.” If the regime blocked the monitors, “then the matter should be referred to the UN General Assembly and Security Council,” al-Ghazali said.

There are other options on the table, ranging from sanctions against the Syrian regime to military intervention.

“It seems the Syrian regime will continue down the same path,” Anwar al-Bonni, director of the Syrian Centre for Legal Research and Studies, told the Weekly. “It has no other choice except to continue until the end. It is relying on the possibility that people will stop protesting, or that the international community will stop pressuring it. However, neither of these is likely to happen. The regime has entered a dark tunnel and blocked the entrance.”

Nevertheless, the Syrian regime still thinks otherwise, and according to Fayez Ezzeddin, a leading figure in Syria’s ruling Baath Party, “the Arab League and international community are challenging Syria’s sovereignty, and this is unacceptable.”

“Syria will never relinquish its sovereignty because it knows that the Arabs and the West are plotting to destroy the country. It is no longer a matter of freedom or rights for any category of people,” he told the Weekly.

Marah Al-Beqaai, a member of the opposition and director of the Al-Waref Institute for Humanitarian Studies in Washington, suggested that the Arab League should make its decisions binding on Syria.

“The Arab League must form an Arab defence force similar to the one that intervened in Lebanon in the 1980s,” Al-Beqaai told the Weekly. “This is the urgent mechanism needed to end the killing and destruction in Syria, and it is an Arab solution unrelated to foreign interference.”

Al-Beqaai doubted that there would be foreign intervention in Syria. “The international community has clearly demonstrated that it will not directly interfere in Syria. The US is throwing the ball into the EU’s court, and because of difficult economic conditions in Europe, the EU is passing the problem onto Turkey. Turkey is fearful of going to war by itself, so it is passing the buck to the Arab League. Meanwhile, the Syrian regimes continues to kill civilians and destroy the country,” she said.

In an interview with the Weekly, a spokesman for the Coordination Organisation of Forces for Democratic Change, the domestic Syrian opposition, said that “the regime has squandered its last chance. It loves to waste opportunities. The resolutions of the Arab League constituted a solid foundation to put the Syrian crisis on the path towards resolution, but the position of the Syrian regime has propelled the crisis into a more volatile stage.”

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and another activist group called the Local Coordination Committees said land and cellular telephone lines as well as electricity were cut in the Jabal al-Zawiya region, where army defectors have been active for months.

Elsewhere, two army defectors were killed in a clash with troops in Qusair near the border with Lebanon, while a civilian was killed by security forces in Hama, said the observatory. The Local Coordination Committees had a different toll, saying one person was killed in Qusair and one in the central city of Homs.

Syria agreed in principle Friday to allow dozens of Arab observers into the country to oversee an Arab League peace plan that calls on the government to stop attacking demonstrators, pull tanks out of cities and begin negotiations with the opposition.

It was a significant concession from a hard-line regime that loathes any sort of outside interference. But critics say the government is only stalling, trying to defuse international pressure while continuing its bloody crackdown.

The Arab League has already suspended Syria’s membership in the bloc for failing to abide by the peace plan. On Wednesday, the league gave Damascus three days to accept the observer mission or face economic sanctions.

Violence has escalated in Syria over the past week, as army dissidents who sided with the protests have grown more bold, fighting back against regime forces and even assaulting military bases. Activist groups said security forces on Friday killed at least 16 anti-government protesters.

Pressure from European capitals and the U.S. is also building on President Bashar Assad to end the bloodshed.

An official at Britain’s Foreign Office said Foreign Secretary William Hague intends to meet opposition representatives in London on Monday.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called on the U.N. Security Council to strengthen sanctions against Assad’s regime. However, Russia, which holds veto power in the council, urged caution in moving against Damascus.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. has seen no signs that Syria’s government will honor the Arab League proposal.

Syria’s neighbor to the north, Turkey, has become one its most vocal critics, a notable shift because the two countries once had close political and economic ties.

On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, commenting on the deteriorating relations between his country and its southern neighbor, accused Syria of not fulfilling promises for reform or to stop the bloodshed.

“In the past nine years, it was Syria and the Syrian people — rather than Turkey — that had benefited from the Turkish-Syrian friendship,” Erdogan said.

“… Syria has not kept its promises to Turkey, to the Arab League or to the world. It made promises but did not fulfill them. It has not acted in a sincere trustworthy manner,” he said.

The attacks on Jabal al-Zawiya came two days after an army force in the nearby area of Wadi al-Deif came under attack by army defectors, a clash that lasted four hours and left an unknown number of casualties among troops loyal to Assad, an activist said.

The activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said troops fired heavy machine guns mounted on armored personnel carriers.

The Arab League observer mission aims to prevent violence and monitor a cease-fire that Damascus agreed to last week but has been unwilling — or unable — to implement.

Nabil Elaraby, the head of the Arab League, said in a statement Friday that he received “amendments” to the monitoring mission from Damascus, which the league is studying. He gave no details on the changes Syria seeks.

The original league proposal had been for a 500-member observer mission but the number has dropped to 40, said Ibrahim el-Zaafarani, an Egyptian member of the Arab Medical Union who is expected to be part of the team for Syria. He said it was not clear why or on whose behest the number was reduced.

___

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Meera Selva in London contributed to this report.

Posted November 19, 2011 11:44:51 

Photo: Syrian president Bashar al-Assad waves from amid a huge crowd of supporters. (SANA : AFP)

Video: Pressure grows on Syria inside and out (Lateline)

Syria is seeking to change plans for monitoring its implementation of an Arab League peace initiative on the eve of a deadline for Damascus to carry out steps to end eight months of bloodshed, the Arab group’s chief says.

The Syrian government has delivered its response to the Arab League just inside the three-day deadline for the Arab peace plan.

Official sources in Damascus say the government has accepted a visit by an Arab League delegation but it has asked for a much smaller one than the 500 observers originally proposed.

Arab League secretary-general Nabil Elaraby says the organisation is studying a letter from Syria which includes “amendments to the draft protocol regarding the legal status and duties of the monitoring mission of the Arab League to Syria”.

A smaller mission would have a very limited ability to monitor a conflict that sees daily clashes between protesters and the security forces in several towns and cities.

Opposition groups have warned that this is just another attempt by president Bashar al-Assad and his allies to buy time.

They point to a long list of broken pledges this year.

In the latest crackdown on protests, activists say security forces have killed 11 people after weekly prayers.

The United Nations says crackdowns have killed at least 3,500 people since March.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton warns there is a possibility of civil war in Syria, either directed or influenced by army defectors.

French foreign minister Alain Juppe says any international intervention must not be unilateral and should be mandated by the United Nations.

Mr Juppe, speaking alongside Turkish foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu, said France was ready to work with the Syrian opposition and that tougher sanctions were needed on Damascus.

But, at the end of a week in which army deserters attacked an intelligence building near Damascus and waged a deadly battle with Mr Assad’s forces he appeared to call on the opposition not to use army defectors to mount attacks.

“We are making a call to the Syrian opposition. To avoid a civil war, we hope that the army will not be mobilised. This would be a catastrophe,” Mr Juppe said.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Syria, including civilians, army deserters and forces loyal to Mr Assad, since it agreed on November 2 to withdraw troops from urban areas and release political prisoners under an Arab League initiative.

Syria says it is trying to implement the deal but has called on neighbouring countries to do more to stem a flow of arms to the opposition and end what it says is a media campaign of incitement against Syria authorities.