Arabs urged to monitor Syrian flashpoints

The opposition Syrian National Council appealed on Sunday for the Arab League to send observers immediately to the besieged city of Homs and other hotspots of a bloody crackdown on dissent.
The call came a day before a first group of Arab League observers is set to arrive in Syria to begin monitoring a deal the 22-member bloc agreed with the government in Damascus aimed at ending more than nine months of violence.
"Since early this morning, the (Homs) neighbourhood of Baba Amro has been under a tight siege and the threat of military invasion by an estimated 4,000 soldiers," said the SNC, the main umbrella group of opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.
"The Syrian National Council demands that the Arab League observers go to Homs immediately, specifically to the besieged neighbourhoods, to fulfil their stated mission," it added in a statement.
At least three people were reported killed on Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that security forces pounded Baba Amro with mortar and heavy machinegun fire, killing an undetermined number of people and wounding 124 others.
Two people were killed in other parts of the city, it said.
The central city of Homs has been a focal point of the Assad government's crackdown on anti-regime demonstrations, as well as the site of fierce clashes between the army and deserters. Security forces also raided the town of Al-Jerdi in eastern Deir Ezzor province, killing one person, wounding four and arresting dozens, said the watchdog.
"Three children who had been wounded on Saturday in military and security operations in the town of Al-Quriya died," it added, noting that reports of the deaths were delayed as the town is cut off by security forces.
A nine-member advance team of Arab monitors arrived on Thursday to pave the way for the observer mission to oversee the deal aimed at ending the crackdown, which the UN estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.
"We demand that the observers go to all the hotspots in Syria, or withdraw and conclude their mission if it is not possible for them to do so. "We hold the Arab League and the international community accountable for the massacres and bloodshed committed by the regime in Syria," the SNC said. Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the Arab League observers to vindicate his government's contention that the violence is the work of "armed terrorists."
Western governments and rights watchdogs blame Assad's regime for the bloodshed.
Opposition leaders charge that Syria agreed to the mission after weeks of prevarication in a "ploy" to head off a League threat to go to the UN Security Council over the crackdown.
Muallem met the advance team of Arab League officials on Saturday, in talks the ministry's spokesman called "positive."
League Assistant Secretary General Samir Seif al-Yazal, heading the nine-member advance team, said the first group of observers - more than 50 experts - would leave for Damascus on Monday.
They will eventually number between 150 and 200. The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that also calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.
But since signing the agreement, the Assad regime has been accused of pressing on with its crackdown on dissent. The SNC and human rights activists have charged that the Syrian government was behind twin suicide bomb attacks on Friday that killed 44 people in Damascus. Assad's regime has blamed the attacks on "terrorist organisations," including al Qaeda, although it has not said how it reached such a conclusion.