BLOODSHED

Report: Monitors to Stay in Syria

Assessment of regime’s crackdown due Saturday.

The Arab League looked to keep monitors in Syria, a diplomatic source said Saturday, despite the reported deaths of hundreds during the monthlong observer mission. Sudanese Gen. Mohammed al-Dabi, head of the 165-member monitoring team, is due in Cairo Saturday to submit a report on Syria’s response to the 10-month uprising. Thousands are estimated to have been killed. The diplomatic source admitted the Arab League does not have “complete satisfaction” with Syria’s cooperation in the mission, but the “in absence of any international plan to deal with Syria, the best option is for the monitors to stay.” The U.S. announced Friday that it would be closing its Damascus embassy by the end of the month, the same day that French President Nicolas Sarkozy denounced Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime of “ferocious repression.”