Arab League to meet this week on Syria; West warns Damascus against storming Homs

Arab League foreign ministers will meet in Cairo at the end of the coming week to discuss a response to Syria’s conditional acceptance of an Arab peace plan, Egypt’s MENA news agency quoted a League official as saying on Saturday.

Syria faces sanctions from Arab nations in response to its violent crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Arab League has repeatedly extended deadlines for Syria to agree to a plan that would see Arab monitors oversee its withdrawal of troops from towns. The latest expired on Dec. 4.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem wrote to the League saying Damascus was prepared to sign an agreement that would allow League monitors into Syria, but only if certain conditions were met, MENA quoted the unnamed official as saying.

MENA quoted Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby as saying the foreign ministers would have to agree before responding to Moualem’s letter.

“We have once again called on Syria to sign the monitors agreement,” MENA quoted the official as saying.

Al-Assad has refused to let investigators from two U.N. human rights inquiries enter Syria, and his regime is resisting Arab League calls to accept monitors despite being hit by crippling sanctions.

As the death toll mounted Britain and the United States expressed fresh concerns, and Washington urged Syria to allow independent monitors into the country.

France called on world powers to “save the Syrian people” on Saturday as it joined the United States and Britain in raising an alarm that the Syrian president’s forces may be about to storm the rebel stronghold of Homs.

“The entire international community must mobilize itself to save the Syrian people,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said, echoing concerns raised in Washington, London and neighboring Turkey.

“France warns the Syrian government and will hold the Syrian authorities responsible for any action against the population,” Valero added.

In Damascus, the government denied any crackdown, while accusing its opponents of taking up arms and warning the rebels’ supporters in the West that Syria could count on Russia, China and others to oppose any foreign intervention in its affairs.

Separately, the official Syrian news agency SANA said the so-called BRICS group of developing economic powers - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – “reiterated its absolute rejection to any interference in Syrian affairs.”

Death toll

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 41 civilians, including seven children, were shot dead by security forces on Friday, with Damascus and the central city of Homs suffering the heaviest casualties.

At least 14 civilians were reported killed on Saturday, including four hit when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at mourners in Maaret Numan in Idlib province and three others hit by “machinegun fire in Hama.”

Activists have called for a civil disobedience campaign from Sunday, the first day of the working week in Syria, with sit-ins, closure of shops and universities, and later a general strike.

In Homs, a pro-democracy activist said there was no clear sign of a troop build-up other campaigners had reported around the city on Friday.

Meanwhile, Syria rejected that characterization of events: “There is no policy of crackdown,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi told Reuters in an e-mail. “The Syrian forces are there to protect civilians and maintain law and order that is breached by those who are carrying arms against the State.”

At least 10 were killed in Homs, where Arab television showed demonstrators chanting “Bashar is an enemy of humanity.”