The Arab League is expected to decide to extend its mission in Syria for another month after a meeting Arab foreign ministers in Cairo Sunday, according to media reports.
“The committee will recommend an expansion of the monitoring mission for an extra month,” an unnamed source told Reuters.
General al-Dabi of Sudan, the head of the mission, said he was satisfied with the observers’ mission in the past month, according to Al-Jazeera television, citing mission deputy Ali Jarush.
“Everything indicates the observer mission in Syria will be extended by a month,” Jarush told the broadcaster.
“Dabi sees that in the last phase the necessary thrust [of the operation] was achieved after more monitors were deployed and fanned across 20 areas and after they were provided with equipment and logistics which they previously lacked,” he added.
The legitimacy of Dabi’s mission has been criticized from the outset. Syrian opposition head Burhan Ghalioun, who chiefs the Syrian National Council, said he told the Arab League that the mission’s current conditions “do not allow it to present an objective report, reflecting the actual situation in Syria,” according to Al-Jazeera.
The United Nations estimates that more than 5,000 people have been killed in violence after widespread protests erupted in March.
