Arab League monitors ‘will be in Syria before the end of next week’

Monitors could be in Syria before the end of this month to assess whether Damascus is implementing an Arab plan to end a bloody crackdown on protests, the head of the Arab League has said.

Galvanised by a soaring death toll after Syria turned troops and tanks on anti-government protests, Arab states have pushed Damascus to let in a team of 150 observers.

“I can say with some assurance, but not certainty, that before the end of next week they will all be there,” Arab League secretary-general Nabil Elaraby said yesterday. The mission is the first of its kind for an organisation characterised until recently by uncritical support for its member states’ mostly autocratic rulers.

At least 47 people were killed in Syria yesterday, including 14 members of president Bashar al-Assad’s security forces, who were ambushed by rebels, an activist group said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said among the dead were 23 people killed in fighting with the army in the northern province of Idlib.