UN, Arab League consider joint Syria observer mission

The United Nations chief, Ban Ki-moon, says the Arab League has asked for UN help to send a joint observer mission to Syria, Al Jazeera reported.

Speaking at the UN in New York, Ban said the Arab League's chief, Nabil el-Arabi, had told him he wanted to revive the controversial monitoring mission that collapsed last month.

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Arabi suggested a joint UN-Arab League mission, which would include a joint special envoy, the BBC reported.

Ban said further consultations with the UN Security Council would be held "in the coming days,” and that the UN was ready to help improve the situation “on the ground,'' in Syria amid escalating violence, centered on the city of Homs.

Ban told reporters on Wednesday:

"I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighborhoods, is a grim harbinger of worse to come."

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The ongoing fighting follows a double veto by China and Russia of an Arab League-drafted UN resolution calling for the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand powers to a deputy.

The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, called the move a “travesty,” while Ban said the "disastrous" failure to agree a UN resolution on Syria had encouraged Damascus to “step up its war on its own people," the BBC reported.

Since the failure of the resolution, the European Union has threatened to impose harsher sanctions on Syria, while Turkey said it was planning an international conference of regional and world powers.