Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's opponents sought today to ramp up pressure on the international community for UN action after the Arab League withdrew its observers and 16 soldiers died in attacks.
Moscow expressed surprise at the decision to withdraw the Arab monitors, as the bloodshed in the regime's crackdown on dissent spiked and the death toll in four days reached nearly 230.
"We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said of the monitoring mission while on a visit to Brunei, cited by the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency.
"I would support an increased number of observers," he said.
"We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers' mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission."
Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said on Saturday the decision to suspend the mission was taken after "consultations with Arab foreign ministers because of the upsurge of violence whose victims are innocent civilians."
He said it also came "after the Syrian government chose the option of escalation, which increased the number of victims."
There was no sign of a let-up in the killing on Sunday, with activists and state media reporting the deaths of 16 soldiers in two separate attacks and three civilian deaths.
Ten members of the military died when their convoy was attacked at Kansafra in the Jebel al-Zuwiya area of the northwest, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
And the official SANA news agency said "an armed terrorist group" killed six others, including two officers, when an army bus was targeted near the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya.
