An Arab League advisory body Sunday called for the immediate withdrawal of the organization's monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was allowing Damascus to cover up continued violence and abuses. The Arab League has sent a small team to Syria to check whether President Bashar Al-Assad is keeping his promise to end a crackdown on a nine-month uprising against his rule. The observer mission has already stirred controversy. Rights groups have reported continued deaths in clashes and tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to show the observers the extent of their anger. The Sudanese head of the mission also infuriated some observers by suggesting he was reassured by first impressions of Homs, one of the main centers of unrest. The Arab Parliament, an 88-member advisory committee of delegates from each of the League's member states, Sunday said the violence was continuing to claim many victims. “For this to happen in the presence of Arab monitors has roused the anger of Arab people and negates the purpose of sending a fact-finding mission,” the organization's chairman Ali Al-Salem Al-Dekbas said. “This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League,” he said. Syrian pro-democracy protesters saw the New Year in with demonstrations, activists said, as a child was reportedly shot dead, becoming the first victim in 2012 of the regime's crackdown on dissent. “The first victim of 2012,” said a statement by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is a seven-year-old child killed in central Hama province when gunfire struck the vehicle he was riding in. In the northern city of Idlib, hundreds of protesters were seen carrying torches and singing songs lauding “national unity” as fireworks lit the night sky. In Syria's second city and commercial hub of Aleppo, a protester held up a sign that said: “Long live free Syria.” A YouTube video shot in Zabadani near Damascus, showed hundreds of people dancing and chanting: “The people demand the ouster of the assassin.” In Daraa, cradle of more than nine months of anti-regime protests, revelers held up banners saying Syria would fare better without pro-regime militias accused of brutal attacks on demonstrators. Meanwhile, the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change have signed a deal to bolster a united front against the regime. Friday's agreement also lays the ground rules for a transitional period as dissidents eye the toppling of Assad's regime.
