Syria Killings Continue Despite Observers - NYTimes.com

Syria Killings Continue Despite Observers - NYTimes.com

clipped from article: The league said on Tuesday that it would send more monitors to Syria to shore up its heavily criticized mission. In a statement, Adnan Khudair, the chief of the observers’ operations room, said that 50 more monitors would be sent to Syria by the end of the week, to join the 60 who are already there.

The mission of the observers is to ensure that the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad lives up to its promises, including to withdraw troops from cities and to release political prisoners.

But Syrian activists say that at least 150 people have been killed in the country since the observers started their work a week ago. The activists argue that the Arab League monitoring effort is far too small to be effective; hundreds or perhaps thousands of observers would be needed, they say.

Meanwhile, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France issued a new call on Tuesday for Mr. Assad to step down because of massacres carried out by his government, The Associated Press reported. The killings “rightly arouse disgust,” said Mr. Sarkozy, who in August joined other Western powers in asking Mr. Assad to “step aside.”

Opposition activists in Hama said that government troops opened fire on a demonstration there on Tuesday.

The Arab League recently set up an office in Hama to hear complaints from citizens, but an activist who uses the name Abu Faysal said: “Frankly, who dares go there? It’s completely controlled by government people; there are bodyguards downstairs searching people.”

Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a news briefing on Tuesday that “the Syrian regime has not lived up to the full spectrum of commitments that it made to the Arab League when it accepted its proposal some nine weeks ago,” and noted that “the violence hasn’t stopped — far from it,” Reuters reported.

Some of the recent violence has stemmed from clashes between security forces and army defectors, or ambushes of government troops by armed rebels.

On Tuesday, Col. Riad al-As’aad, the leader of an opposition militia, the Free Syrian Army, said that his group might soon intensify its attacks because the Arab League observer mission had proved ineffective.

“Thugs and security people are escorting them all the time,” Colonel As’aad said. “We haven’t seen snipers leaving the roofs of buildings. The killing has increased with the presence of the observers.” [ read more at link]