Arab League says 'killings continue' in Syria

Syria's military has withdrawn from residential areas and is on the outskirts of the country's cities, but gunfire continues and snipers are still a threat, according to the secretary-general of the Arab League.

Nabil El-Araby said on Monday that security forces have not stopped shooting at protesters in Syria, despite the presence of an Arab League observer mission in the country.

"Yes, there is still shooting and, yes, there are still snipers,'' El-Araby told a news conference in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, where the Arab League is based.

"Yes, killings continue. The objective is for us to wake up in the morning and hear that no one is killed. The mission's philosophy is to protect civilians, so if one is killed, then our mission is incomplete.''

"There must be a complete ceasefire,'' he added.

El-Araby also said tanks and artillery have been pulled out from cities and residential neighbourhood. He added that food supplies had reached residents and bodies of dead protesters had been recovered.

At least 150 people have been killed since the observers began their mission last Tuesday to verify the compliance of President Bashar al-Assad's government with an Arab League peace plan aimed at ending the nine-month-old crackdown on anti-government protesters.

"We call upon the Syrian government to fully commit to what it promised," El-Araby said.

The United Nations has said more than 5,000 people have been killed in the crackdown on protests, which broke out in March. Syrian authorities say armed groups have killed 2,000 security forces personnel.

The death toll, as well as increased international isolation, has added pressure to the Arab League mission. Al Jazeera's
Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Antakya in Turkey, said this week was "marked by conflicting reports and statements from various monitors".

Ahelbarra continued: "While there remains some confusion over the situation in the country, the Arab League is trying to be extremely cautious because this is the first instance in modern history where the league has been involved in a monitoring mission."

Prisoner releases

Many Syrian opposition activists are skeptically that the mission can put real pressure on Assad to halt the violence.
El-Araby said the League would report on the monitors' first week of work and decide if more were needed. He said 70 monitors were currently working in six cities, and 30 others would arrive soon.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reports from Antakya, on Turkey's border with Syria

Those already in the country had achieved the release of 3,484 prisoners in Syria, he said, and the League was asking
Syrian opposition groups for names of people thought to have been held in jails so their release could be verified.

It was unclear if the number included prisoner releases in the past month announced by the Syrian government. The
government said on December 28 it had freed 755 prisoners.

The Arab League mission was also making a difference by getting food supplies into Homs, a hotbed of anti-government
protests, and evacuating dead bodies, El-Araby added.

"Give the monitoring mission the chance to prove its presence on the ground," he said.

Al Jazeera's Ahelbarra said the Arab League is likely to ask for more time and more observers to complete its mission.

"They have 70 people on the ground observing the situation but human rights activists are saying they need more than 500 observers," he said.

"Either way, we are starting to see more pressure being applied on the government," Ahelbarra added.

Report expected

El-Araby also used the news conference on Monday to defend the record so far of Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, chief of the monitoring contingent.

Dabi last week raised fears among opposition groups that the monitoring effort could whitewash the Assad government when he said there was "nothing frightening" happening in Homs.

"There is no doubt that he [Dabi] is a respectable military man and his record, which I saw, does not include anything that would condemn him," El-Araby said.

He said he expected Dabi to return to Cairo by the end of the week and present a report on what was achieved in the first week of monitoring. Arab foreign ministers would then decide if the number of monitors should be increased.

As our correspondent pointed out, the scepticism that has surrounded the Arab League mission shows no signs of dissipating.

"They do not have the experience, expertise and logistics [to carry out such a mission] – so basically this is uncharted territory for the union," Ahelbarra said.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies