Extra month for Syria mission

The Arab League obser-vers mission in Syria has been extended for another month, officials from the 22-member organisation said yesterday.

The decision was made during a meeting by Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, where they decided to add more members to the mission and provide more resources.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the UN would train the observers.

The move had been widely expected after the troubled mission technically expired on Thursday. Many in Syria’s opposition movement have complained that the observers failed to curb the bloodshed in the country as the regime cracks down on a 10-month-old uprising.

Diplomacy has taken on urgency as opponents of Assad’s regime and soldiers who switched sides inc-reasingly take up arms and fight back against government forces, raising fears the conflict is veering towards civil war after starting with largely peaceful protests in March.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ head Rami Abdul-Rahman said government troops had pulled back early yesterday to a provincial headquarters and a security agency building in the Damascus suburb of Douma after hours of clashes, although they still controlled the entrances. The clashes broke out after Syrian troops opened fire at a funeral on Saturday.