Syria bomb burials
January 8, 2012
The Arab League ministers are meeting in the Egyptian capital Sunday to hear a report from Sudanese General Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, who leads the Arab League monitors in Syria to assess if President Bashar al-Assad's government is living up to the terms of a peace deal to end a crackdown on anti-government protesters.
Ahead of the Arab League meeting, Dabi, a former Sudanese intelligence chief, said it was too early to judge the mission's effectiveness.
"This is the first time that the Arab League has carried out such a mission," he told Britain's Observer newspaper. "But it has only just started, so I have not had enough time to form a view."
The meeting on Sunday comes after thousands of government supporters attended the funerals on Saturday of 26 people, including 11 police officers, who were killed in an apparent suicide bombing in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Public funerals
Organized by Assad's regime, the coffins of the victims were carried through the streets of Damascus, where state television pictures showed grieving relatives wailing near the bomb site. Chanting "may God protect Syria and its sovereignty," the mourners followed the funeral procession.
The event gave the government an opportunity to insist once more that it faces a "terrorist threat," rather than a popular opposition movement. But the opposition denies it has turned to terrorism and accuses the government of orchestrating the bombing to sway international opinion.
It was the second bombing following an earlier incident on December 23 in which 44 people died.
Soon after the blast on Friday, in which a further 60 people were injured, Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar said authorities would now strike with an "iron fist at anyone who tries to tamper with the security of the country or its citizens."
Spiraling violence
Saturday's events are part of ongoing unrest in Syria, which has continued to escalate despite the presence of observers from the Arab League.
Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said he was concerned about the worsening situation, which on Saturday saw Syrian security forces kill at least nine people in the province of Homs - one of the earliest flashpoints in the uprising - and elsewhere. Activists put Saturday's civilian death toll at 21.
"The Arab League should admit that its observer mission has failed," said Bassima Kadamani of the opposition Syrian National Council. "And it should hand over the task to the United Nations."
While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for all violence to "stop immediately" and offered to train the Arab League observers, he has not suggested UN officials would take over.
The UN estimates that more than 5,000 have died since the opposition uprising and subsequent crackdown began in March 2011.
Author: Zulfikar Abbany (dpa, AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Sean Sinico