You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Last U.N. Monitors Withdraw from Syria

HeadlineAug 20, 2012

The last U.N. monitors have withdrawn from Syria, marking the end of a four-month mission. The mission announced its dissolution last week amidst unrelenting violence between government and rebel forces. Earlier today, the Syrian regime launched a new assault to retake the Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya from the opposition. On Sunday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended services at a Damascus mosque, his first public appearance since a bomb attack killed top members of his cabinet last month. The United Nations, meanwhile, has confirmed veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as the new international mediator for Syria, replacing Kofi Annan. U.N. spokesperson Eduardo del Buey announced Brahimi’s appointment.

Eduardo del Buey: “The violence and the suffering in Syria must come to an end. The secretary-general appreciates Mr. Brahimi’s willingness to bring his considerable talents and experience to this crucial task, for which he will need, and rightly expects, a strong, clear and unified support of the international community, including the Security Council.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top