...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
suspended its controversial observer mission in Syria on Saturday as the bloodshed in a crackdown on anti-regime protests spiked with the corpse count nearing 200 in four days. The announcement came as umbrella opposition group the Syrian National Council (SNC) said its leader would travel to New York to press the UN Security Council for protection from Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad's
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
regime.
SNC chief Burhan Ghaliun's trip comes amid a new bid by Arab and European states for UN action over the more than 10-month-old deadly crackdown on dissent that has hit immediate opposition from staunch Syria ally Russia.
It also comes as Gulf states and Turkey called in Istanbul for global efforts to focus on bringing the bloodshed to an "immediate end" and paving the way for the initiation of a political transition. Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said, "The decision to suspend the observer mission was taken after a series of consultations with Arab foreign ministers because of the upsurge of violence whose victims are innocent civilians."
He said it also came "after the Syrian government chose the option of escalation, which increased the number of victims". The 165 Arab League observers were deployed on December 26 after Syria agreed to a league plan foreseeing a halt to the violence, prisoners freed, tanks withdrawn from built-up areas and free movement of observers and foreign media.
The head of the monitoring mission, General Muhammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, said unrest has soared "in a significant way", especially in the flashpoint central cities of Homs and Hama and in the northern Idlib region. According to a tally by AFP taken from reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and official Syrian media, 193 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since Tuesday.
"The SNC, meanwhile, has decided to head to the Security Council tomorrow, led by Burhan Ghaliun, to present the Syrian case and demand protection," executive committee member Samir Neshar told an Istanbul news conference.