Arab League to decide on Syrian mission's fate

Foreign ministers expected to extend observers' mandate, amid reports of continued clashes between army and defectors.
Arab League foreign ministers are due to meet in Cairo to discuss the future of an observer mission in Syria that critics say has failed to halt the bloodshed in the country.
The regional bloc is expected to extend the Arab League monitoring mission, even boosting observer numbers, after foreign ministers are briefed in the Egyptian capital on Sunday on the mission's first month in Syria. An observer mission official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mission’s observers, entrusted with monitoring the government’s implementation of a peace plan aimed at ending violence in the country, would increase from 165 to 300, Aljazeera reports.
The meeting comes amid reports of clashes between Syrian government troops and army defectors in Douma, a suburb of the capital, Damascus, on Saturday night.
"Apparently there were some clashes between the regime's army and the FSA [Free Syrian Army] but the FSA has gone back to its positions," Rafif Jouejati, a spokeswoman for the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network, told Al Jazeera.
Activists say that hundreds of people have been killed since the monitors arrived in Syria, with some reporting the deaths of as many as 740 civilians in the last month.
Critics say the Arab mission has only provided diplomatic cover for President Bashar al-Assad to pursue a crackdown that has already killed more than 5,000 people since anti-government protests erupted in March 2011, according to a UN count.
The incident followed reports of heavy clashes between the army and defectors in Idlib. Opposition activists said nine regular troops were killed by defectors.
Mohammad Fizzo, an activist on the Turkish side of the border, told Al Jazeera there were many injured on both sides.
"A group of soldiers who defected were trying to escape to Turkey when the government forces raided the bordering villages of Ain al-Beida and Khorbat al-Joz using heavy weapons and mortars," he said.
Earlier in the day, activists posted videos of what they said were soldiers in Idlib announcing they had sided with the opposition in protest against the government’s crackdown on dissent.
Idlib, the base of many defected soldiers, has become a stronghold of the armed opposition, which has been targeting army convoys to prevent them from regaining pockets of territory under the opposition’s control.