...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
observers on Wednesday entered the flashpoint Baba Amro neighborhood in the Syrian city of Homs, as world powers urged Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
to give them full access as they try to reveal the truth about the regime's crackdown on dissent.
Residents of Baba Amro initially refused to allow the monitors in because an army officer was accompanying them, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Later the officer agreed to stay out of the restive neighborhood, thus allowing the observers to enter Baba Amro, the Observatory added.
At the same time the residents asked the monitors to "come and see the maimed people and the parents of the deaders, and not members of the (ruling) Baath party," the rights group said.
The monitors also visited the Bab Sebaa quarter of Homs, where according to the Observatory the regime had organized a parade in support of
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
The Observatory said it feared "that the observer team is not really seeing the violation of human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
in Syria."
The regime withdrew tanks from the streets of Homs, where hundreds of people have died in the nine-month crackdown on dissent, just hours before the observers arrived there on Tuesday and "could be back in five minutes," said the Observatory's chief, Rami Abdul Rahman.
Abdul Rahman called on the observers to investigate the fate of what he said were tens of thousands of people nabbed since unrest erupted in March.
Meanwhile,
...back at the buffalo wallow, Tex and his new-found Indian friend were preparing a little surprise for the bandidos...
security forces rubbed out five civilians in Homs, five in the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Arbin, one in the southern province of Daraa, one in the northwestern province of Idlib, one in the coastal province of Latakia, one in the central province of Hama and another in the northern province of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
For its part, the Observatory said mutinous soldiers ambushed a convoy killing at least four loyalist troops and wounding 12 in Daraa province.
Observers also headed Wednesday to other key protests hubs in Syria.
The monitors were due to visit Daraa -- cradle of more than nine months of anti-regime protests -- the northern provinces of Hama and Idlib, and around Damascus to pursue their investigations.
"As of Wednesday evening, and from Thursday at dawn, the observers will deploy in Idlib and Hama and in Daraa," mission chief General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Dabi, a veteran Sudanese military intelligence officer, said observers would also fan out 50-80 kilometers around Damascus.
The observers arrived in Syria at the weekend and on Tuesday visited the Homs, which has been besieged by government troops for several months.
Dabi said the visit to Homs had been "good", and that he was heading back there on Wednesday. He said more observers would join the mission, which now numbers 66 monitors.
French foreign ministry front man Bernard Valero said the visit had been too brief and insufficiently revealing.
"A few Arab League observers were able to be briefly present in Homs yesterday. Their presence did not prevent the continuing of the bloody crackdown in this city, where large demonstrations were violently repressed, leaving about 10 dead," he said.
"The brevity of their visit did not allow them to understand the reality of the situation in Homs. The Arab League observers must be allowed to return without delay to this martyr city, to travel everywhere in it freely and to have the necessary contact with the public."
The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that calls for the withdrawal of security forces from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.
Valero said "the international community will be reassured when the violence stops, when the army returns to barracks, when the political prisoners are freed and when foreign journalists will receive visas to go to Syria."
Activists say the army pulled back heavy armor from Baba Amro ahead of Tuesday's visit by the monitors, accusing the regime of deception.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Syria to give the observers maximum freedom as they go about their mission.
"We constantly work with the Syrian leadership calling on it to fully cooperate with observers from the vaporous Arab League and to create work conditions that are as comfortable and free as possible," Lavrov said Wednesday.
The United States and Human Rights Watch
... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world...
warned Damascus was hindering the mission which started following weeks of prevarication from Syria.
HRW accused the Syrian authorities of having "transferred perhaps hundreds of detainees to off-limits military sites to hide them from Arab monitors.
"The Arab League should insist on full access to all Syrian sites used for detention, consistent with its agreement with the Syrian government," the watchdog said.
State Department deputy front man Mark Toner said "we obviously look to these individuals to be intrepid in their search for the truth of what's happening on the ground."
The United States "would ... demand that the Syrian authorities allow them full access to the Syrian people in order to carry out their mission."
Syrian foreign ministry front man Jihad Makdisi has said the "mission has freedom of movement in line with the protocol" Syria signed with the Arab League. But the observers are banned from sensitive military sites.
On Tuesday, Syrian police used tear gas to disperse some 70,000 people who flooded the streets of Homs emboldened by the observers' visit and fired with live ammunition at some demonstrators, activists said.
The U.N. estimates more than 5,000 people have been killed in the crackdown since protests against President Bashir al-Assad's regime began in mid-March.
The government blames the violence on "armed terrorist" groups.