Arab League mission to go on despite planned Gulf withdrawal

Gulf states to withdraw Syria observers after Saudi pullout Arab peace monitors part of the Arab League delegation will continue their work in Syria, the deputy head of the regional body said on Tuesday, as Gulf Arab states plan to to pull their monitors out of the country. Deputy League head Ahmed Bin Helli told reporters in Cairo: \"The mission will continue its task now because the protocol was temporarily extended till 24 January.\"
Syrian activist network \"Local Coordination Committees\" (LCC) meanwhile claimed 40 people were killed in Syria on Tuesday, of which 32 died in Homs. The report alleged 18 of the 32 died when two buildings in the Bab Tadmur neighbourhood were shelled, while four people died in Hama.
Gulf states are meanwhile set to follow Saudi Arabia\'s lead by withdrawing their observers from Syria, Kuwaiti newspapers reported on Tuesday.
The Gulf Cooperation Council states will also take part in a high-level Arab delegation that will visit Russia to press Moscow to end its support for Bashar Al-Assad\'s regime, Kuwait\'s Al-Qabas daily reported, quoting diplomats.
The dailies Al-Qabas and As-Seyassah said foreign ministers from the six-nation GCC met in Cairo following the Arab League meeting Sunday and decided to withdraw their observers.
There was however no mention of when the observers would depart.
Al-Qabas reported that the observers did not want \"false witnesses to the crimes committed against civilians by the Syrian regime.\"
Syria was \"exploiting observers to temper a solution to the crisis,\" the newspaper quoted officials as saying.
Saudi Arabia, the largest GCC member, decided on Sunday to pull its observers from the widely criticised Arab League mission to Syria. Other GCC members include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said Riyadh \"is withdrawing from the mission because the Syrian government has not respected any of the clauses\" in the Arab plan aimed at ending the crisis.
The League, which resolved on Sunday to prolong its mission, was reportedly waiting for the Syrian government to accept the extension. \"There are now 110 Arab monitors left in Syria after 55 Gulf Arab monitors withdrew,\" said Bin Helli.
Assad’s troops have cracked down on protests against almost five decades of Baath rule which kicked off mid-March, killing a UN estimate of over 5,400 people and drawing widespread international condemnation.
The Violation Documentation Centre, a website maintained by activists that supposedly influenced UN estimates last pegged the death toll at 6,579.
However, campaign group Avaaz estimated that 7,276 people were killed in Syria since the uprising began. It used the figure to put pressure on Russia to end its support for the Assad regime, saying in a statement: \"It\'s time for Russia see the writing on the wall, and stop blocking security council action...the fate of the Syrian spring is hanging in the balance.\"
In a letter to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Secretary General of the Arab League Nabil Al-Arabi expressed his hope that Damascus would cooperate with the League in order to reach a national consensus solution for the Syrian crisis and avoid foreign intervention.
Bin Helli said Tuesday that Al-Arabi informed Muallem of the mission report, issued on Sunday and the Arab League proposals concerning the situation in Syria.
Muallem in a press conference on the monitoring mission dubbed their call for UN involvement a \"provocation to bring in the international community\" and another phase in the \"conspiracy\" against Syria.
Muallem accused the \"hypocritical\" League of submitting \"politicised\" demands saying: \"A blind man, can\'t judge colours...they have been attempting to shape a future for Syria, removed from the will of the Syrian people.\"\"This is bluntly and utterly and interference in the sovereignty in our domestic affairs,\" he said.
He expected the Arab League mission report “would not satisfy some Arabs”. He hailed the “professionalism” of the head of the League mission Mohamed Al-Dabi.
Regarding the European sanctions on his country, Muallem said it would affect the Syrian people not the government.
\"There is no doubt that any kind of sanctions affect the population but they do not affect the political situation,\" Muallem said.
On Russia’s stance toward Syria, Muallem said Moscow would oppose all forms of intervention in Syria.
\"Russia would never agree on foreign intervention in Syria, that is [for Russia] a red line [for it],\" he said.
He stated the Arab League was not qualified to monitor the situation in Syria, although he drew attention to points in the League\'s report that favoured the Syrian government\'s role in the crisis. He said it confirmed the presence of armed gangs and that the Free Syrian Army killed the French journalist Gilles Jacquier earlier this month in an attack in Homs.
The minister also insisted that the government implemented its agreement with the Arab League but the report was \"manipulated\" to hide the facts, and that army casualties tripled during the mission\'s visit.
Global human rights group Amnesty International said that the mission\'s findings have put more pressure on the Assad regime to implement reform and cease violence.
The mission’s observers were reported to have submitted a field report to the Arab League on the first four weeks of their work, citing clear evidence of human rights violations by the Syrian government that was supposedly consistent with Amnesty International’s own findings.
The full report has not been made public.
“The Arab League mission’s report has bolstered the case that the international community must take strong action to end the grave human rights violations committed in Syria since last March,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s interim Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director.
In a speech responding to the findings, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi said the human rights violations by Assad’s government had led some members of the opposition to take up arms, leading to fears of a possible civil war.
The report cited some progress in granting limited media access and mentioned the release of some prisoners held in relation to widespread protests that began in March 2011.
The League has also reportedly obtained lists of those who were detained or disappeared, and urged the government to release those still being held and clarify the status of those who have gone missing.“The true measure of the observer mission’s success will be whether its findings can successfully spur the international community to address the serious ongoing human rights concerns in Syria,” said Harrison.
The LCC also criticised the statements by Arab League mission head Al-Dabi.
“We have anticipated that the observers will come out with a balanced report that shows the butcher and the victim even with an alleged effacement of the daily heroic acts of millions of Syrians in their pursuit of freedom, dignity, democracy and fair judgment,” said the LCC on Al-Dabi’s report to the Arab League, adding “as expected, the report did assign equal blame to both the victim and the hangman.”
The LCC criticised most of the mission’s observers, saying they lack professionalism and that most came to Syria with a “preconceived notion against the Syrian revolution.”
Al-Dabi earlier announced that the violence in Syria was gradually declining since the arrival of the League mission, which he considered as an indication of  the mission\'s “success”.
The United Nations is also thought to be restricted by Russia and China\'s refusal to grant to lend full support to the Western offensive against Assad in the UN. It was also reported that Russia was selling 36 Yak-130 light attack aircraft to Damascus.
Moscow underlined Syria\'s strategic importance by sending an aircraft carrier into port at Tartous, the Russian navy\'s singular base on the Mediterranean. Syria\'s Muallem on Tuesday said that \"no one could doubt the strength of the relationship between Syria and Russia.\"
However, a top Kremlin aide said on Monday Moscow could do little more for Syrian President Assad, opening the door to a shift in Russia\'s position after 10 months of bloodshed.
Moscow is one of Assad\'s few remaining allies, resisting pressure to call for his resignation and, with China, blocking a Western-crafted UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned the crackdown.
But Russia can do no more, state-run news agency Itar-Tass quoted Mikhail Margelov, a senior lawmaker who is President Dmitry Medvedev\'s special Africa envoy and has also engaged in diplomacy over Syria.
US State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland hailed the Arab League’s new initiative, and called on Assad to hand over authority to his deputy, to prepare for democratic transition in Syria.
Describing what the Arab League did over the weekend as \"really quite remarkable,\" Nuland highlighted its call for Assad to step down, its conclusion that the Syrian government has not yet fully implemented the four-point peace plan signed in November, and its inclination to be more active in consultation with the UN Security Council.
\"It is the job of the Assad regime to stop the violence,\" she remarked, adding: \"It\'s the job of the Assad regime to pull back its tank to allow journalists in, to release people from prison.\"