Arab League monitors arrive in Syria

An advance team of seven Arab League officials has arrived in Syria to lay the groundwork for Arab monitors to implement the Arab League peace plan in Syria which was signed by the Syrian government earlier this week.

The team arrived Thursday with the remainder of the Arab League mission scheduled to arrive this Saturday. Al Jazeera sources are expecting anywhere from 30 to 50 officials to be part of this first mission, which is headed by , Samir Saif al-Yazal, the Arab League assistant secretary-general.

Other members include security, legal and administrative observers as well as observers specialised in human rights, and security issues.

Once the remainder of the officials arrive, they will say which cities they will be visiting in accordance to the Arab League peace plan. Nabil el-Araby, the Arab League, has stated that protecting members of this mission is the Syrian government's responsibility.

The Arab League will hold a meeting in Cairo at the foreign ministerial level during the first week of January to discuss whatever progress had been reached so far. Members of Syria's opposition will attend.

Syrian opposition will report to the Arab League on December 26, and its recommendations will play a role in mapping out the agenda for January's meeting

Violence continues

Despite the arrival, Syrian activists on Thursday reported the deaths of at least 15 people, including 12 in the central city of Homs and three in the northwestern city of Idlib which Syria's opposition says has borne the brunt of operations by Syrian forces that left 250 people dead in the last two days.

The assault in Idlib drew international condemnation with France branding the killings an "unprecedented massacre" and the US saying Syrian authorities had "flagrantly violated their commitment to end violence".

The Turkish foreign ministry also issued a statement saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government was turning the country into a "bloodbath".

It said the violence was in stark contrast to the spirit of the Arab agreement and raised doubts about Syria's "true intentions".

Syria stalled for weeks before signing the Arab League protocol on Monday to admit the monitors. The plan calls for the government to violence, withdraw of troops from the streets, release of prisoners and dialogue with the opposition.

Syrian officials say over 1,000 prisoners have been freed in the last six weeks and that the army has pulled out of cities. The government promised a parliamentary election early next year as well as constitutional reform which might loosen the ruling Baath Party's grip on power.

Syrian pro-democracy activists are deeply sceptical about Assad's commitment to the plan, which, if implemented, could embolden demonstrators demanding an end to his 11-year rule, which followed three decades of domination by his father.

'Bloodiest day'

Syria's opposition bloc on Wednesday reported the death of 250 people across the country in 48 hours.

Syrian National Council (SNC) demanded "an emergency UN Security Council session to discuss the [Assad] regime's massacres in Jebel az-Zawiya, Idlib and Homs, in particular" and called for "safe zones" to be set up under international protection.

On Tuesday, Syrian forces killed 111 civilians when Assad's forces surrounded them in the hills of Idlib province and unleashed two hours of bombardment and heavy gunfire, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rami Abdulrahman, the UK-based Observatory's director, said that another 100 army deserters were either wounded or killed, making it the "bloodiest day of the Syrian revolution".

Idlib, a province bordering Turkey, has been a hotbed of protest during the revolt, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world this year, and has also seen increasing attacks by defectors against his forces.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Turkey, said that activists told her there was heavy security presence across Idlib and particularly in Jabal al-Jawya on Thursday.

"According to this activist, Jabal al-Zawya is under the total control of the Syrian army. Many people have fled the area. They are taking shelter in fields in that province," Khodr said.

"[Residents] were not able to escape into Turkey because the Syrian army beefed up its presence along the border."

More than 2,000 members of Syria's security forces have been killed in nine months since anti-regime protests broke out, state news agency SANA said on Thursday.

"In response to a fallacious [United Nations] report on the situation in Syria, we have informed the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the number of martyrs has surpassed 2,000 members of the security forces and the army," according to a letter SANA reported to have been sent.

The UN has said that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the same period.

The British-based Avaaz rights group said it had collected evidence of more than 6,237 deaths of civilians and security forces, 617 of them under torture. At least 400 of the dead were children, it added.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies