Arab League suspends Syria over killings

Crowds armed with sticks and knives attacked the Saudi Embassy in Damascus, Syria, and the French and Turkish consulates in the city of Latakia Saturday after the Arab League suspended Syria, residents said.

A diplomatic source in Damascus confirmed the attacks, which took place hours after the Arab League suspended Syria's participation and sought other extraordinary censures that reflect the shifting politics of the region after this year's Arab Spring uprisings.

The Arab League's move follows an eight-month crackdown by President Bashar Assad's security forces on pro-democracy demonstrations. His regime is accused of killing more than 3,500 protesters since March.

The decision to freeze Syrian delegates' activities stopped just short of full membership suspension. The Arab League warned of political and economic sanctions, urged Arab states to withdraw their envoys from Damascus, and called on Syrian forces to reject orders to fire on the protesters revolting against Assad's authoritarian rule.

"We were criticized for taking a long time, but this was out of our concern for Syria," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al Thani, who led the committee on Syria, told reporters in Cairo. "We needed to have a majority to approve those decisions."

The 22-member, Cairo-based Arab League surprised political observers with yesterday's measures, which went well beyond what anyone had expected from a body long regarded as calcified and toothless. Analysts used words such as "watershed" and "historic" as they parsed the announcement on Twitter.

Few predicted a chastened response from the defiant Assad; but the landmark move does show the extent of Assad's isolation in the changing Middle East.

Countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, where revolts have toppled heads of state, were eager to show solidarity with the Syrian protesters. Arab states in the Persian Gulf, meanwhile, are locked in a battle with Iran, Assad's main backer, for regional influence, especially in conflict areas including Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

Though Arab League delegates stressed that the group's crisis talks on Syria didn't include discussion of a no-fly zone, analysts said the penalties against Syria could be interpreted as laying the groundwork for that option.