By Michael Peel in Abu Dhabi
A member of the Arab League mission to Syria quit on Wednesday, amid increased international scrutiny of the operation aimed at ending a bloody uprising violence.
Anwar Malek, an Algerian monitor, called the mission a “farce”, accused Damascus of war crimes and criticised his own group’s leader, further damaging the credibility of an initiative that is in danger of unravelling amid disagreements among Arab states. He claims the death rate in Syria has actually increased since the monitors arrived.
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Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, on Wednesday warned that the mission could not continue indefinitely. “We cannot permit President Assad and his regime to have impunity," she said, adding that the US and its Arab allies would await the mission’s final report, due on January 19.
The comments came as Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, made a surprise public appearance to tell a pro-government rally that his regime was close to defeating the foreign plot it claims is behind an uprising of more than 10 months, estimated to have killed 5,000 people.
The president – who was accompanied by his wife Asma and two children, scotching rumours they had left the country – declared his regime would “make this phase the end” for those outside Syria allegedly conspiring against him.
Meanwhile, France 2 television said that one of its journalists, Gilles Jacquier, was killed at a pro-regime rally in the city of Homs on Wednesday. Syria’s Addounia TV reported that eight people were killed at the rally and 25 injured, with the latter including a Dutch journalist.
Mr Jacquier is the first foreign journalist killed since the anti-regime protests began in Syria 10 months ago.
Mr Malek, still wearing one of the orange vests worn by the Arab League monitors, told Al Jazeera English television the Assad regime had “orchestrated” the 165-strong observer mission that arrived late last month and “fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime”.
“The mission was a farce and the observers have been fooled,” he said. “What I saw was a humanitarian disaster. The regime isn’t committing one war crime but a series of crimes against its people.”
Mr Malek said that – contrary to an Arab League peace plan requiring the Syrian army to pull out of civilian areas, the release of political prisoners and the start of a dialogue between government and opposition – the regime “didn’t withdraw their tanks from the streets, they just hid them and redeployed them after we left”.
He said he had seen “scenes of horror” during a visit to the third city of Homs, one of the centres of the uprising, including “burnt bodies, bodies that had been tortured, people who had been skinned, children who had been killed”.
“From time to time we would see a person killed by a sniper,” he said. “I have seen it with my own eyes. I could not shed my humanity in such situations and claim independence and objectivity.”
Mr Malek attacked mission leader Mohammed al-Dabi, a Sudanese general who has already faced criticism from rights groups over his role in the Darfur conflict. Mr Malek claimed Mr Dabi “wanted to steer a middle course in order not to anger the [Syrian] authorities or any other side.”
An official from the Arab League, which has delayed sending more monitors to Syria pending investigation into an attack that injured several members of a mission team in Latakia earlier this week, described Mr Malek’s claims as “unfounded”, adding that he had been ill and bedridden in his hotel for much of his time in Syria, according to Agence France-Presse.
However, Mr Malek’s blistering attack on the mission echoes those of many Assad regime opponents, who say the initiative is ineffectual and even counterproductive because it is buying the government more time to target protesters.
A senior UN official told the Security Council the rate of killings in Syria linked to the uprising had risen to 40 a day since the Arab League mission began, according to Susan Rice, the US envoy to the UN.
The league’s faltering handling of Syria has eroded confidence in its ability to resolve a crisis in which it had initially appeared decisive, suspending Damascus from the organisation and unveiling economic sanctions against the Assad regime.
The Syrian president felt sufficiently emboldened this week to use his first public address in months to attack fellow Arab states and warn them he would neither resign nor allow the country to be “destroyed by foreign plots”.
At his follow-up appearance at a rally in a Damascus square on Wednesday, Mr Assad told thousands of supporters that his regime would “undoubtedly triumph over this conspiracy”.
“We will make this phase the end for them and their plans,” he said. “We are going to win without any doubt.”
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