Arab League 'to reassess Syria mission'

The Arab League is to reassess the work of its heavily criticised observer mission in Syria at a meeting later this month, the organisation's chief Nabil al-Arabi said on Saturday. "There is an overall reassessment of the work of the observer mission which we will discuss at the next ministerial meeting to be held in Cairo on Saturday, January 21," Arabi told AFP during a visit to Oman. "There has been partial progress until now but there is daily bloodshed in Syria that the League aims to end," he added. Arabi said he met with the Omani minister responsible for foreign affairs, Yussef bin Alawi, on efforts to achieve a political settlement in Syria and protect its citizens. The Arab League mission has been criticized for failing to end violence in Syria where the United Nations says the regime's crackdown on protests has cost more than 5,000 lives since March.