‘With blood and soul we’ll redeem the martyrs’

AN ARAB League monitor told an angry crowd in Syria that his team’s job was only to observe, not to help them remove the president, live video on Al Jazeera showed yesterday.

“Our goal is to observe… it is not to remove the president, our aim is to return Syria to peace and security,” he said, speaking over a loudspeaker at a mosque filled in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

But the unnamed observer promised to convey the protesters’ sufferings to the Arab League.

“From what I have heard there is blood being shed,” he said. “That is for sure.”

Someone from the mosque tried to calm the audience. But a man broke the silence, shouting: “My son is a martyr, they killed him.” This prompted chants of, “With blood and soul we will redeem the martyrs”.