AMMAN/DAMASCUS: Syria’s President Bashar Assad has vowed to continue his crackdown and said he would not surrender to outside pressure as the Arab League agreed to meet again to discuss further ways to end the crisis.
The Arab League formally announced Sunday it had rebuffed a request by Damascus to amend plans for a 500-strong observer mission to Syria as a Saturday deadline to halt repression of protesters passed with no apparent end to violence. They said Sunday that its foreign ministers would hold crisis talks on Syria in Cairo next Thursday.

Within hours of the deadline passing, residents said two rocket-propelled grenades hit a major ruling Baath party building in Damascus Sunday, the first such reported attack by insurgents inside the capital.

Confronted since March by street demonstrations against 41 years of rule by his family, Assad said he had no choice but to pursue his crackdown on unrest because his foes were armed.
“The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue. Syria will not bow down,” he told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby rejected Syria’s request to alter a plan for the fact-finding mission – which would include military personnel and human rights experts – in a letter to Syria’s foreign minister.
“The additions requested by the Syrian counterpart affect the heart of the protocol and fundamentally change the nature of the mission,” said the letter, released by the Arab League.

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said the plan as it stood compromised the country’s sovereignty but Damascus had not rejected the mission
Moallem added that the proposed mission had “pervasive jurisdiction that reaches the level of ... violating Syrian sovereignty” and said he would send the Arab League a letter with questions about its role.

“We will reply to the Arab League secretary-general by responsibly presenting a number of queries,” he told a televised news conference in Damascus.
The Cairo-based League had given Damascus three days from a meeting on Nov. 16 to abide by a deal to withdraw military forces from restive cities, start talks between the government and opposition and pave the way for an observer team.

The pan-Arab body had threatened sanctions for non-compliance, and it suspended Syria’s membership in a surprise move last week.
Moallem said he would continue talks with Araby on the observer mission, but insisted the Arab proposals were “unbalanced.”

The document, he said, “totally ignores the Syrian state, even coordination with the Syrian state. Without cooperation with the Syrian state how can a delegation come and travel about as it wishes?”Moallem also brushed off an Arab League threat of sanctions after the expiry of a deadline Saturday night for Damascus to honor an agreement with the 22-nation bloc to end the bloodshed. “We in Syria do not consider that the deadline is the important issue. The content is the important issue, and to reach an agreement with the Arab League is what counts.”

Assad signaled no retreat from his iron fist policy in an interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times newspaper, after his forces killed at least 17 more protesters Saturday. “The only way is to search for the armed people, chase the armed gangs, prevent the entry of arms and weapons from neighboring countries, prevent sabotage and enforce law and order,” the paper reported him as saying.

Lebanese former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, replying to a question posed on Twitter, said about Moallem’s speech that “he was repeating his boss’s statements to the Sunday Times, who himself was repeating statements made by dictators now long gone.” Regarding his expectations on the fallout following the fall of Assad, Hariri said that “the whole Arab world will benefit.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday troops manning roadblocks in Homs fired on residential areas and wounded three protesters. In the nearby town of Talbiseh, security forces delivered the bodies of two men arrested last month and in Idlib another two civilians were killed in military operations, the British-based group said.

Assad said there would be elections in February or March when Syrians would vote for a parliament to create a new constitution and that would include provision for a presidential ballot.
The Free Syrian Army, comprising army defectors and civilians, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Baath Party building in Damascus.

There was no independent verification of the claim and Moallem denied that any attacks had taken place. But a witness said security police blocked off the square where the building was located and reported seeing smoke rising from it and fire trucks in the area.

The Free Syrian Army said the grenade attack was a response to the refusal of Damascus to release tens of thousands of political prisoners and return troops to barracks, as called for by the plan agreed between the Arab League and Damascus.

Activists in the central city of Homs said the body of Farzat Jarban, an activist who had been filming and broadcasting pro-democracy rallies there, was found dumped near a private hospital Saturday with two bullet wounds.

Moallem said the West and some Arab countries were ignoring the actions of armed gangs in Syria who had been killing people “according to their identity cards,” referring to growing reports of sectarian killings between majority Sunni Muslims and Assad’s Alawite community in Homs.