Arab League suspends observer mission in Syria

(CNN) — The Arab League has suspended its monitoring mission in Syria because of an increase in violence, a senior league source said Saturday.

The move comes just days after President Bashar al-Assad’s government agreed to a one-month extension of the mission, which began December 26.

The mission is part of a peace initiative in Syria. The 22-member group has called on al-Assad’s regime to stop violence against civilians, free political detainees, remove tanks and weapons from cities and allow outsiders — including the international news media — to travel freely in Syria.

The mission has been monitoring government activities in various hotspots. In the last two days, opposition activists reported scores of deaths, with one group, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported 135 deaths Thursday and Friday.

Violence continued to rage on Saturday as an “armed terrorist group” killed seven soldiers in an attack Saturday, state-run media reported.

The Syrian Arab News Agency said the attackers fired at a bus in the Damascus countryside and killed the soldiers, one of whom was a first lieutenant. They were traveling between the towns of Douma and Adra.

Terrorists were also blamed for an explosion on an oil pipeline in northeastern Deir Ezzor province, SANA said, quoting a source at the country’s oil ministry.

The SANA report said production wasn’t affected by the attack but that 2,000 barrels of oil were lost. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and crews began repair work. It said the pipeline had been attacked before.

The LCC confirmed a pipeline explosion and said 12 people were killed Saturday, eight of them were killed in the restive city of Homs.

It reported other incidents, including one in which a child was killed and security forces shot and shelled targets in Deir Ezzor.

Security forces killed a man in the Homs province town of Hawleh, and explosions and shooting rang out in the Homs’ city neighborhood of Baba Amr, the LCC said.

An activist died after an ambush by regime forces in the Daraa province town of Al-Gharia Al-Sharqiya, the activists said.

In the Damascus suburbs, security forces killed a man at a checkpoint of Harasta when they shot at his car. Also in those suburbs, corpses were discovered at a farm and clashes occurred between soldiers and the Free Syrian Army, the resistance force comprised of military defectors.

In Aleppo city, security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas grenades to disperse mourners who gathered for a funeral.

The United Nations last month estimated that more than 5,000 people have died since March, when the government launched a crackdown against peaceful demonstrators. But activist groups estimate a higher death toll, with counts near or exceeding 7,000 people.

Activists blame the deaths on government actions. The Syrian government says terrorists are responsible for the casualties.

Diplomats at the U.N. Security Council are considering a draft resolution that calls on President Bashar al-Assad to step down and transfer power to his vice president.

The council on Friday discussed the measure, introduced by Morocco.

It also supports “full implementation” of the Arab League report that called on Syria to form a unity government within two months but stopped short of supporting military intervention. The Arab League report was released about a month after it sent observers into Syria.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, are expected to brief the council Tuesday about the observer mission’s findings.

When asked whether that briefing would lead to a vote next week, France’s U.N. envoy, Gerard Araud, responded with just one word: “Inshallah,” or “God willing” in Arabic.

There will be a Monday meeting of experts from the missions of the 15 countries on the Security Council.

Syrian ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Ja’afari was dismissive of the draft. “Syria will not be Libya; Syria will not be Iraq; Syria will not be Somalia; Syria will not be a failing state,” he told reporters.

In Iraq, Syrian Kurdish political groups gathered this weekend to formulate a plan to protect their rights if the al-Assad regime is ousted. They met in Irbil, in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. All but a few Kurdish parties attended.

Participants told CNN that they want to see their rights guaranteed in a new constitution and also they want to be an integral part of the political process.

The Kurds are an ethnic minority in mostly Arab Syria. The group also is a minority in Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

There were no participants from Iran, Turkey, and the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Fighters from the PKK have been waging a guerrilla war against the Turkish state since the early 1980s.

Also, the Syrian National Council, the major opposition group in Syria, did not participate.

CNN’s Salma Abdelaziz, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Frederik Pleitgen and Joe Sterling contributed to this report