Sudan's Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa Al-Dabi, the head of the Arab League monitoring mission to Syria, gestures during a meeting in Khartoum on December 21, 2011. Launched in the hopes of ending months of unrest and quelling the regime's violent crackdown on dissent, the Arab League observer mission has been welcomed by Syria, but the opposition has been critical and called instead for the issue to be taken to the UN.
{}