The Syrian opposition on Wednesday accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of misleading an Arab League mission, piling more pressure on the regional body to withdraw observers inspecting Damascus's compliance with a peace plan, dpa reported.
The opposition says the mission is providing Syria with a cover to continue its crackdown on protesters. Amid those calls, the Arab League has faced calls to withdraw the observers or lose its credibility.
Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi rejected those calls on Wednesday and said the monitors would remain in Syria for a month.
"During that month, a lot of things can be changed there," al-Arabi told reporters in Cairo. Al-Arabi said the mission had informed him that Syria had pulled heavy military equipment from residential areas, but snipers remained a threat to civilians.
The Syrian opposition said at least 13 civilians were killed by soldiers and police across Syria on Wednesday. The opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said most of the deaths occurred in the restive city of Homs, a hotbed of protests.
Residents in some Syrian areas reported on Wednesday that soldiers had repainted military vehicles to dupe observers into believing they were police cars, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
An Arab League committee will discuss on Sunday in Cairo the mission's progress in assessing al-Assad's compliance with a peace plan that calls on him to pull the military from residential areas, open talks with the opposition, and release political prisoners.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdisi said in remarks published on Wednesday that his country was "betting on the impartiality and professionalism" of the observers, who were sent to Syria in late December.
"We are providing everything necessary to facilitate the League's mission because its success in highlighting realities in the country is in the interest of Syria," Maqdisi told the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat.
The United Nations has said more than 5,000 people have been killed in Syria since mid-March.
...