League calls for new effort on Syria

BEIRUT – Arab leaders meeting in Cairo on Sunday called for a renewed United Nations attempt to help halt violence in Syria, asking the Security Council to create a joint Arab-U.N. peacekeeping force to oversee implementation of a prospective cease-fire.

The Arab League request came eight days after a league initiative that called for Syrian President Bashar Assad to cede power was vetoed by Russia and China in the Security Council. Whether the latest Arab League measure would win their approval was unclear.

The Syrian government, a Russian ally, rejected the latest proposal as a “hostile act” and a blueprint for “foreign intervention in Syrian affairs,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels picked up an incendiary new supporter: al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in a video posted on the Internet called on Muslims from neighboring nations to back the almost yearlong uprising against Assad.

The al-Qaida leader’s plea came amid reports in the Arab and Western news media that Iraqi al-Qaida operatives – with expertise in car bombs and roadside explosives previously used against U.S. forces – may already be fighting in Syria, which shares a long border and tribal ties with western Iraq.

Al-Qaida involvement would present the United States and other nations seeking to oust Assad with a thorny dilemma: Should the anti-Assad “Friends of Syria” coalition, as it is now known, back a side that includes al-Qaida?

The secular Assad government regularly labels its opponents terrorists, and says it is fighting Islamic militants. The Arab League, Western powers and Turkey say that Assad’s forces have repeatedly attacked peaceful demonstrators, turning a protest movement into an armed insurgency. The prospect of Islamic zealots seizing power terrifies many Syrians, especially minority groups such as Christians and members of Assad’s Alawite sect, who fear an Iraq-style sectarian bloodletting.

There was no immediate reaction from Moscow, but it seemed improbable that Russia would embrace a call for the deployment of international peacekeepers, who would presumably be armed, though the League plan does not specify whether they would be.

The League also called on nations to cut diplomatic ties with Assad’s government and vowed “political and financial support” for the Syrian opposition.

The League also asked the Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an end to the violence in Syria and demanding access for humanitarian groups, including the Red Crescent and the Red Cross. The U.N. is expected to consider the proposals this week.