...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...
deadline for Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
to stop its lethal crackdown on dissent was set to expire.
Among the dead were four intelligence agents killed by gunnies who raked their car with gunfire and two mutinous soldiers who died in festivities with regular troops as the military raided the central town of Shayzar after a heavy shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The latest bloodletting came just hours before the 2200 GMT deadline from the vaporous Arab League as world pressure mounted on
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
's regime to stop the violence which the U.N. says has killed more than 3,500 people since mid-March.
With rebel troops inflicting mounting losses on the regular army, Turkey and the United States both raised the specter of civil war and Russia called for restraint.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague was to meet rebel leaders in London on Monday.
After talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...in Moscow, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said: "It is indispensable to increase international pressure.
"We have tabled a resolution at the United Nations
...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas...
. We hope it will find as wide support as possible."
Russia has staunchly resisted any attempt to internationalize the crisis, fearing it could clear the way for a Libya-style military intervention under a U.N. mandate.
In October, both Russia and China vetoed a Western-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution that would have threatened Assad's regime with "targeted measures" over its crackdown.
"We are calling for restraint and caution. This is our position," Putin said a day after his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had likened the situation in Syria to a civil war.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as
America's Blond Eminenceand at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Charles Evans Hughes...
and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu both warned that the risk of civil war was real, amid growing losses among regular troops at the hands of mutineers.
"I say there is a risk of transforming into civil war," Davutoglu told Agence La Belle France Presse, pointing to the upsurge in attacks by army defectors.
Clinton told NBC news: "I think there could be a civil war with a very determined and well-armed and eventually well-financed opposition that is, if not directed by, certainly influenced by defectors from the army."
The Arab League said it was examining a Syrian request to make changes to a proposal to send 500 observers to Damascus to help implement a peace deal agreed earlier this month.
Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi was to meet aides at 16:00 GMT and later issue a statement concerning sending an observer mission to Syria, Arab officials said.
Syria has been told by its Arab peers to stop the lethal repression against protesters by midnight (22:00 GMT) on Saturday or risk sanctions, and the Arab League has already suspended it from the 22-member bloc.
As the clock ticked, there was further bloodshed in Syria and troops pressed on with their repression, activists said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 non-combatants were killed in violence on Saturday, seven of them in Kfar Kharim in Idlib province in the northwest, close to the Turkish border.
It quoted a mutinous officer as saying that two army deserters "were killed in festivities with regular troops in Qusayr" in the restive central Homs province.
Also in central Syria "deserters raked with gunfire a car carrying four members of the air force intelligence near the village of Al-Mukhtara on the Salmiyeh-Homs road killing everyone on board," the Britannia-based watchdog said.
Earlier, troops stormed the central town of Shayzar, the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition umbrella group, reported.
On Friday, government forces killed at least 15 people as protesters defied a massive security force presence to urge nations to expel Syrian ambassadors to further isolate Damascus, activists said.
The Organization of the Islamic Cooperation said it will convene an emergency meeting next Saturday at its Saudi headquarters to urge Syria to "end the bloodshed."
OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said he "rejects foreign intervention in Syria" but warned that further unrest threatens regional stability as well.
Elsewhere, dozens of people rallied outside the U.S. consulate in west Jerusalem in support of the Assad regime, denouncing what they called a "conspiracy" against Syria.