BEIRUT — An Arab League committee traveled to Damascus on Thursday to discuss the logistics of a planned mission to monitor an increasingly violent uprising and the response of the Syrian security forces, which has been widely condemned as disproportionately brutal.
Following the imposition of sanctions by the Arab League, the government of President Bashar Assad agreed Monday to implement a plan for hundreds of observers to enter the country. They are set to report on a situation that activists say is a bloody crackdown on dissent and Syrian authorities say is a battle against armed gangs, foreigners and extremists.
The mission begins its work after a surge of violence in the northwest, where opposition groups say hundreds of people have been killed, although they disagree on whether the casualties were peaceful civilians, armed dissidents or defected soldiers.
Neighboring Turkey condemned Assad over the “bloodbath.” The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed as Syria has sought to crush the uprising.
