• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Syrian Opposition Urges Arab Observers to Go to Homs

VOA News December 25, 2011

An exiled Syrian opposition leader has urged the Arab League to send a nascent observer mission to the central city of Homs, where rights activists say government troops have intensified a crackdown on dissent.

In a video message broadcast Sunday, Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun said the observers should be deployed to Homs neighborhoods besieged by security forces, such as Baba Amr. A nine-member advance team of Arab monitors arrived in Damascus on Thursday to prepare for the eventual deployment of about 150 observers in Syria. A group of 50 monitors is due to arrive on Monday.

Syria agreed to the observer mission under pressure from the 22-member Arab League, which wants to monitor Syrian compliance with a plan requiring the government to end its deadly suppression of a nine-month pro-democracy uprising.

Syrian rights activists say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have escalated an assault on centers of protest in Homs in the days leading up to the deployment of the observers. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights tells VOA pro-Assad forces killed at least six people in Homs on Sunday in shelling and shooting attacks. It says government forces also killed three people in the northeastern town of Deir Ezzor.

London-based Observatory spokesman Mousab Azzawi says Syrian military helicopters have been flying over Homs to try to locate the signals of satellite phones used by local activists to inform the rights group about the crackdown. He says the Observatory has lost satellite phone contact with several Homs neighborhoods in recent days.

It is not possible to independently verify casualty figures in Syria because the government bars international journalists from operating freely in the country.

In his video message, Paris-based SNC leader Ghalioun also called for the U.N. Security Council to adopt an initiative to stop Syrian government forces from attacking protesters. Russia and China have blocked efforts by Western powers to use the Council to condemn the Syrian government and impose sanctions on it for continuing the crackdown.

The United Nations estimates 5,000 people have been killed in violence linked to the uprising since it began in March with protests against Assad's 11-year autocratic rule. Syria says "armed terrorists" are driving the revolt and accuses them of killing 2,000 security personnel during that period.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.