The head of the Arab League asks the United Nations Security Council to boost the size of a UN mission in Syria and give it expanded powers to protect people. Photo: REUTERS [Jerusalem Post article]
Posted on 06/01/2012 6:23:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The head of the Arab League has asked the U.N. Security Council to boost the size of a U.N. mission in Syria and give it expanded powers to protect people following a surge in violence there, according to a letter leaked to media outlets on Friday.
Images of the bloodied bodies of children and others massacred in the city of Houla in attacks blamed on President Bashar al-Assad's forces have shocked the world and highlighted the failure of a 6-week-old U.N.-backed ceasefire plan to stop the violence in the 14-month uprising against Assad's rule.
Nabil Elaraby, secretary-general of the Arab League, condemned the attacks in a letter to the Security Council...
Elaraby, who has said the violence was intended to undercut a truce brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan that never took hold, is struggling to keep alive Annan's six-point peace plan and avert full-scale civil war in Syria...
Security Council diplomats in New York said they received the letter, although it was not immediately clear how they would react.
Elaraby's suggestion of giving the U.N. mission the power "to take the necessary measures to protect Syrian civilians" might not be acceptable to Russia, which has a veto on the 15-nation council.
That is similar to language the council used last year to authorize military intervention in Libya, which Russia did not veto but has criticized ever since. Russia has vowed to prevent Syria from becoming another Libya, where it says NATO air strikes provided support to rebels and led to "regime change."
It was also not clear whether the Syrian government would consent to an expansion of the mission, known as UNSMIS, or allow it to be armed, which would make the monitors more like peacekeepers than unarmed observers.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The head of the Arab League asks the United Nations Security Council to boost the size of a UN mission in Syria and give it expanded powers to protect people. Photo: REUTERS [Jerusalem Post article]
In Australia, SBS News service is showing repeated segments in which locals from the village who identify themselves as sunni, are identifying the attackers as Shia from a nearby village, within sight of Houla. They are seen and heard to be describing what the attackers did, what they shouted, what they wore, what slogans and/or identifying marks they had on their foreheads.
Are you NOT seeing any of that in the US?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In Australia, SBS News service is showing repeated segments in which locals from the village who identify themselves as sunni, are identifying the attackers as Shia from a nearby village, within sight of Houla. They are seen and heard to be describing what the attackers did, what they shouted, what they wore, what slogans and/or identifying marks they had on their foreheads.
Are you NOT seeing any of that in the US?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of course not. Following a political correct version it was a government forces who did all the slaughter.
And if the sunni in the village took a page out of Arafat’s playbook, then there’s no way of knowing who the attackers were, it’s islam after all and they all died for the cause...another hundred martyrs. Allah Akbar!
I hope Putin continues to say no way. It was bad enough watching NATO destroy Lybia. Israel is the target imo and blue berets in the streets of American cities is zero’s dream.
Oh yeah, send in the UN...considering every major UN intervention has the troops there either looking feckless and helpless (The Pakistani experience in Somalia or the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon) asking the UN for help is kinda pointless, but me thinks the Arab League is probably asking them as they know what the other alternative is...Israel or Turkey ends this pretty soon on their own accord.
Israel doesn’t want this spreading into Lebanon, and Lebanon’s pretty fragile politically right now. There’s already been some early fighting on their side of the border, and Lebanon does have a history, as well as their major backer is falling apart fast. What happens when all that comes apart? The Israelis will be left with some very unpalatable options.
Lebanon isn’t politically fragile, there is no Lebanese gov’t per se because of the Iranian proxies that occupy part of the country. Syria has its fingers in to some extent but Syria’s troops were finally pulled out due to pressure by the Lebanese and the international community, after thirty years of Syrian occupation of part of the country. The number of Lebanese who aren’t anti-Israel is small on a good day; a partitioned and divided Lebanon has led to years of attacks, while the unity Christian/Muzzie regime prior to the mid-1970s meant a quiet border. That regime was destroyed by the PLO.
I doubt it. And obviously there’s plenty of FINOs who don’t want to see it as well as their comrades on the left. Thanks Fred Nerks.
the Arab league don't want a non-Sunni, secular government like Syria's to survive
What the West should do is ensure that Assad STAYS and the Al-qaida backed sunnis are shut out of power. This will separate Syria from the Arab league and give us a devil we know rather than a devil we don't.
Even the UN isn’t that stupid.
The Syrian regime isn’t secular, it’s Alawite/Shiite, and allied with Russia and Iran, both of which are long-term enemies of the US.
Why doesn’t the Arab League send troops of its own? This is an Arab fight isn’t it? Why involve infidels?
moozulms killing moozlums. Just what is the problem?
I really don’t know why there’s a problem here. Whenever Muslims got tired of killing Christians and Jews, they’ve killed each other for the last 1,400 years. I don’t get what all the posturing is about.
The Arab League seeks an international imprimatur on the intervention; member states of the A.L. don’t have large standing armies, and those which have decent-sized ones don’t necessarily have very good ones. The Syrian army, for all its failings, probably is best in the Arab world, with Jordan second only due to the equipment available to the Syrians. Of course, we should reflect on the 1973 Arab War on Israel, and how despite all the advantages the Syrians enjoyed, they still lost nearly 1000 tanks.
The door to Dr. Mousab Azzawi's clinic, on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, was always open to anyone who needed help. But, operating in the heartland of the feared Shabiha militia, there were some patients the doctor would have preferred not to treat. "They were like monsters," said Dr. Azzawi, who worked in Latakia. "They had huge muscles, big bellies, big beards. They were all very tall and frightening, and took steroids to pump up their bodies. I had to talk to them like children, because the Shabiha likes people with low intelligence. But that is what makes them so terrifying -- the combination of brute strength and blind allegiance to the regime." As President Bashar al-Assad's country continues its savage slide towards full-blown civil war, the violent, dark and secretive world of the Shabiha is coming out into the open. Nine days ago, 108 people were butchered by the Shabiha in the town of Houla. The pro-Assad thugs went through the village, house to house, and slit the throats of anyone they came across -- including 49 children. Exactly a week later, the Shabiha pulled 12 factory workers off a bus in the town of Qusayr, 40 miles to the south; tied their hands behind their backs, and shot them in the head. ... The world is learning just how bloodthirsty the Shabiha can be. But inside Syria, their capacity for hideous brutality has long been known. "Even before the revolution, any time there was unrest they would go out into the streets and stop it for the government," said Selma, who comes from a prominent Alawite family ... "They would just break people's arms and legs. They would fight for Bashar to the death. It is natural -- they have to defend their sect." -- The Shabiha: Inside Assad's death squads
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