Arabs lean toward extension of Syria mission: source

Arab states are likely to extend the mandate of their monitors in Syria despite concerns over their inability to bring about an end to bloodshed during their first month there, an Arab diplomatic source said on Friday. Arab League members have been worlds apart over how to bring about a lasting solution to Syria's crisis and the source told Reuters that they now had little option but to renew the observer mission unchanged, Chicago Tribune quoted Reuters as reporting. Factors favoring such a decision included the lack of international appetite for a Libya-style military intervention and an assessment that the observers were helping to curb at least some of the violence and encouraging peaceful protest. The 165-person mission expired on Thursday with no sign of a halt to President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on popular unrest. "The closer Sunday's meetings of the Arab committee and the Arab foreign ministers get, the more the conviction grows that the Arab monitoring mission in Syria should be extended," the source at League headquarters in Cairo said. "Yes, there is not complete satisfaction with Syria's cooperation with the monitoring mission. But in the absence of any international plan to deal with Syria, the best option is for the monitors to stay." Hundreds of people have been killed since monitors arrived in late December in Syria, where an armed rebellion has grown in recent months, overshadowing civilian anti-Assad demonstrations. Qatar has proposed sending in soldiers from Arab countries to restore calm but others have rejected the idea, saying Syria's government would never agree and they could not spare any troops anyway. The use of force in Syria would require the backing of all the League's members but would face almost certain opposition from its neighbors, Iraq and Lebanon. The Arab League source said the Qatari proposal was separate from the debate over whether to extend the observer mission and would be discussed by Arab foreign ministers meeting Cairo on Sunday, but there was no precise plan in place. And it appeared that even those countries that had been pushing to withdraw the monitors were changing their minds. The final decision partly depends on what the head of the monitoring mission, Mohammed al-Dabi, reports on Sunday. "If the Syrians continue to partially cooperate, as Dabi told the committee two weeks ago, then this partial cooperation is better than leaving the stage open to the Syrian regime alone," the source said.