Syria faces new sanctions after ignoring Arab deadline

Syria yesterday faced new sanctions after flouting an Arab League deadline to accept observers to monitor the unrest sweeping the country, which the UN says has killed at least 4,000 people.

The latest stand-off between Syria and the Arab League comes as the death toll from violence across the country on Saturday and yesterday rose to at least 44, and after the UN Human Rights Council accused Damascus of “gross violations” of human rights.

A senior Qatari official said Damascus had asked for “new clarifications and further amendments to be made to the protocol which was proposed” to cover the deployment of the observer mission.

But the Arab ministers had “refused”.

The Qatari official said, however, that if Syrian officials “still want to sign, they can come tomorrow (today) to Cairo”.

The Arab League ministerial committee late on Saturday gave Damascus until yesterday to allow an observer mission into the country and thereby avoid further sanctions.

Three children aged 11, 14 and 16 and their father, were among 21 people killed yesterday by security forces and pro-regime “shabiha” militiamen, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Twenty of those killed yesterday died in the flashpoint central province of Homs which has been at the forefront of the regime’s crackdown on dissidents, the Britain-based watchdog said.

Earlier it reported 11 civilians among 23 people killed on Saturday, most occurring in the northwestern province of Idlib, another focal point of anti-regime protests raging since March.

Yesterday’s deadline was announced in Doha by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who also warned against the internationalisation of the Syrian crisis if Damascus did not heed the Arab call.