| But, but, but: they're the Arab League! |
DAMASCUS: The Arab League has turned to the United Nations for help after admitting "mistakes" in its Syria monitoring mission, which has come in for withering criticism for its failure to stem bloodletting.
The head of the rebel Alliance Free Syrian Army, meanwhile, called on the Arab League to withdraw its observers from Syria, dubbing the bloc's monitoring mission a failure. "We hope they will announce that their mission was a failure and that they will be withdrawn," Col. Riyadh Al-Asaad, who is based in Turkey, said by telephone.
| "And they're getting in our way," he added softly... |
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani, who heads an Arab League task force on Syria, on Wednesday discussed the deadly protest crackdown with UN leader Ban Ki-moon in New York, Kuwait's KUNA news agency reported.
"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," said Sheikh Hamad, quoted by KUNA.
| And nobody knows more about ineffectual monitoring than the U.N. You came to the right place, boys... |
A UN spokesman said only that Ban and Sheikh Hamad "discussed practical measures by which the United Nations could support the observer mission of the Arab League in Syria."
| "We can get them a great deal on white Land Cruisers." |
Sheikh Hamad would not say what mistakes had been made. Syrian opposition groups say the monitors have been kept under too tight a rein in the country and that hundreds of people have been killed despite the presence of the observers.
The Arab League, however, will not withdraw the monitors from Syria until their month-long mission in the country ends, a representative of an Arab state at the regional body said Thursday. The League's special committee on Syria is due to meet in Cairo on Sunday to debate the initial findings of the mission, which was set up to monitor a peace plan brokered by the League.
"It is impossible for the Arab League to withdraw its monitors, regardless of the content of any of (the mission's) reports," the Arab government representative said on condition of anonymity.
Syrian opposition activists say the mission is failing. Syrian rights groups have reported continued deaths in clashes and protesters taking to the streets to show the observers the scale of their anger. They complain that the observers rely on the government for transportation and logistics.
Some officials at the Arab League said countries such as Sudan, Jordan, Egypt and Algeria were wary of ending the mission early, fearing that declaring it a failure might provoke Western military intervention in Syria.
| Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that... |
Another Arab government representative said the committee was likely to discuss possible measures to help the monitors, such as providing them with white Land Cruisers vehicles so they can travel around the country without the assistance of Syrian authorities. |