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January 11, 2012

Arab League Observer Calls Syria Mission a "Farce" 
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A former Arab League observer in Syria is criticizing the league's
monitoring mission during the Assad regime's crackdown, calling it a
farce. Anwar Malek, an Algerian national who recently stepped down from
the mission, spoke out in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Anwar Malek: "The mission was a farce and the observers have been
fooled. The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw to
stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime. What I saw
was a humanitarian disaster. The regime is not just committing one war
crime, but a series of crimes against its people. "The regime didn't
meet any of our requests, in fact they were trying to deceive us and
steer us away from what was really happening, towards insignificant
things. They didn't withdraw their tanks from the streets — they
just hid them, and then redeployed them after we left."



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