DAMASCUS: Syria's official media lashed out at the Arab League on Wednesday, accusing it of serving US and Israeli interests as the regime continued its brutal crackdown on a seven-month popular protest, with 10 civilians reported killed. Two teenage girls and a woman were among those killed Tuesday in separate violence in the central flashpoint province of Homs and in and around the village of Qusayr bordering Lebanon, a watchdog group said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four of the victims were killed by gunfire of the pro-government "shabiha" militiamen in the Homs district. Two others were killed in clashes between the army and gunmen suspected to be army deserters in a village near Qusayr, including a woman who was hit by a stray bullet, the watchdog reported. The teenage girls were killed when troops engaged in clashes with suspected defectors near Qusayr, when their home was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade that also wounded four family members. A young man died when security forces opened fire as they carried out raids in the town, and several were wounded, said the Observatory, adding that the victim's brother was arrested. Three other people were killed in separate violence, it said as the army and security forces pressed on with a crackdown on anti-regime opponents and hunted suspected army defectors. Syrian forces raked homes with heavy machine-guns as they raided neighborhoods searching for suspects wanted by the authorities, the Observer said. The Observatory also reported that a civilian, who had been wounded on Tuesday on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, died early Wednesday. Activists had said security forces on Tuesday shot dead four people in Qusayr and in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the anti-regime protests that erupted in mid-March. The United Nations estimates more than 3,000 people, including 187 children, have been killed in a fierce crackdown on dissent in Syria. Arab League attempts to help defuse the deadly violence — specifically a call for a dialogue between the government and the opposition — was met with harsh criticism by the official Al-Thawra newspaper. "It is no longer surprising to see the Arab League, which is supposed to be concerned with joint Arab action, turn into an instrument of injustice aimed at destabilizing Syria," the newspaper said. The daily said the 22-member Arab League was "hostage to powers following the agenda of aggressors like the United States, Israel and their European allies." "Following years of inaction, the Arab League has now become a tool of destabilization, and is acting against Arab interests," said the newspaper. At an urgent session in Cairo on Oct. 16, the Arab League called for "national dialogue" in the Egyptian capital between Syria's government and the opposition by the end of the month to help end the violence and avoid "foreign intervention" in Syria. Syria's representative to the Arab League, Youssef Ahmad, slammed what he said was a "conspiracy" against Assad's regime. Protests against the Assad-controlled Baath Party, which has ruled Syria unchallenged for close to 50 years, have shown no signs of dying down despite a rising death toll. On Tuesday Syrian state television aired a broadcast of what it said was a pro-Assad rally in the second city of Aleppo, Syria's economic hub, claiming it was attended by a million supporters of the embattled Assad.
