Arab League adds UN personnel to Syrian observer corps

Arab League adds UN personnel to Syrian observer corps - could work if Russia is NOT involved.

The observer mission in Syria may be boosted to a truly international level. The Arab League is ready to include “well-equipped” non-Arab agents into its thus-far entirely Arabic team, bringing the number of observers to some 3,000 people.

Ministers from the Arab League are meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the Syrian issue.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal has called on the Arab League to halt all forms of diplomatic cooperation with Syria and to implement harsher sanctions on Assad’s regime. However, the offer of a collective diplomatic break has been met with controversy, Itar-Tass reports.

Some member states are also reportedly seeking that the Arab League grants a formal recognition to the opposition Syrian National Council.­

Meanwhile, Tunisia has offered to host an international "Friends of Syria" meeting on February 24, in attempt to reach a consensus on the issue. The meeting will include Arab, regional and international states. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal have already confirmed their countries will take part in the conference.

Another discussion on the table is a possible change of the mission status from “observer” to “peacekeeping”.

The new mission is expected to include representatives not only from the Arab League states, but also from several non-Arab Islamic nations and other countries, Al Jazeera reported. The new team will be supplied with all necessary equipment to aid the mission.

The chief of the current observer mission, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, has resigned on Sunday. The reasons of his resignation have not been announced yet.

A former UN Special envoy to Libya, Abdul-Illah al-Khatib, is expected to be named as the Arab League's new special envoy to Syria.

The Arab League observer mission was frozen on January 28 due to the escalation of violence in the country. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier stated he is ready for a revival of international observer mission in the country, after negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The 165-member Arab League mission first went to Syria in December. Six Gulf Arab states, Jordan and Morocco have withdrawn their teams since then, but other members are still in Syria.

­Phantom resolution

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has denied reports that it presented its own draft resolution on Syria at the UN General Assembly. Earlier reports suggested that a new draft was circulating among the Arab League members. It was believed to duplicate the previous draft that had been vetoed by Russia and China at the UNSC due to its unbalanced and biased approach to solving the crisis.

The General Assembly is due to discuss the Syrian issue on Monday.

Russia will not be able to block the resolution in case the vote takes place, as no country has a veto force at the General Assembly. However, the UNGA resolutions, unlike the UNSC ones, have no legal power.

­Funerals as fighting continues

­There are continuing reports of violent clashes taking place between Assad’s security forces and rebels in many parts of Syria.

Meanwhile, in the largest Syrian city of Aleppo, activists held a massive funeral procession for the victims of the recent twin blast. Two cars stuffed with explosives exploded near security compounds on Friday, killing 28 people and injuring 235.

So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Syrian government earlier said it suspected Al-Qaeda of being behind the suicide terrorist attacks. The Syrian opposition however accuses President Bashar al-Assad of masterminding the bombings to discredit them.

On Sunday, the leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, has voiced his support for the Syrian uprising, calling on Muslims to join the opposition in Syria in their drive to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

The bombings in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 23 and January 6 are also believe to have been carried out by the Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda.