BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Arab League looks set to keep monitors in Syria, given the lack of any Arab or world consensus on how to halt bloodshed in a 10-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, an Arab diplomatic source said.

Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, head of the 165-strong monitoring team, was due in Cairo on Saturday to submit his report for a League committee on Syria to consider the next day.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces have retreated from a rebel-held town under a local ceasefire, residents said, but deadly violence raged on elsewhere as a month-long mandate for Arab League peace monitors in Syria was expiring.

The head of the monitoring team was still working on his report and would not arrive at the League’s Cairo headquarters until Saturday, the day before Arab foreign ministers are due to weigh their next move on Syria, a League source said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces have pulled back from a rebel-held town near Lebanon under a local truce deal, residents said on Thursday, but there was no sign of an overall halt to violence as a month-long mandate for Arab peace monitors in Syria expired.

Bloodshed is reported to have cost 600 lives since the observers began work, a period in which an armed insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad has increasingly eclipsed civilian unrest over his autocratic rule.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Britain called on Wednesday for harsher sanctions on Syria, where an Arab monitoring mission has failed to halt bloodshed in a 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

But Russia underlined divisions at the United Nations, saying it would work with China to prevent the Security Council from approving any military intervention in Syria.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Britain called on Wednesday for harsher sanctions on Syria, where an Arab monitoring mission has failed to halt bloodshed in a 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria may let the monitors stay on after their mandate expires on Thursday, but Assad’s foes say the Arab League peace effort has failed and the U.N. Security Council should step in.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria risks plunging deeper into violence and even civil war because President Bashar al-Assad “listens to nobody” inside or outside the country calling for change, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said.

A veteran politician whose ties with Damascus have ebbed and flowed over decades of shifting alliances, Jumblatt said he had no contact with the Syrian leader since meeting him in Damascus seven months ago in the early weeks of Syria’s uprising.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria may let Arab monitors stay on after their mission expires on Thursday, but foes of President Bashar al-Assad say the U.N. Security Council should step in to halt 10 months of bloodshed.

Arab foreign ministers, due to consider their next step later this week, are split over how to handle Syria, as is the Security Council, which has failed to adopt any position.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Eleven people were killed in Syria on Monday in a 10-month-old struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and his foes that a peace plan monitored by Arab observers has failed to quench.

Arab foreign ministers will meet on Sunday to discuss the future of the mission sent last month to check if Syria is abiding by the agreement it accepted on November 2.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon demanded Friday the disarmament of the anti-Israel Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which had said his visit to Lebanon was not welcome.

“I am deeply concerned about the military capacity of Hezbollah and … the lack of progress in disarmament,” he told a news conference after meeting Lebanese leaders.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Arab League head Nabil Elaraby said on Friday he feared a possible civil war in Syria that could have consequences for neighboring countries, as the credibility of the League’s monitoring mission was hit by members starting to walk out.

An Algerian former monitor said several monitors had left Syria or might do so soon because the mission had failed to halt President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on a popular revolt against his rule.