Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was to brief the Arab League on Monday on his mission to Syria that a rebel commander predicted is doomed to fail, as violence rattled Damascus and the second city Aleppo.Also in Cairo, there were reports of a meeting of an unlikely quartet of Iran -- a strong ally of Bashar al-Assad -- and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who have called for the Syrian president’s ouster.And the United Nations said human rights violations have soared dramatically in the Syrian conflict.Brahimi was to brief Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi on his visit to Syria, his first since taking on the job earlier this month, where he met Assad and members of the opposition tolerated by Damascus, a League official said.The UN-Arab League envoy and Arabi will discuss “the Arab and international moves required to resolve the current crisis in Syria,” the official said.Brahimi, who replaced Kofi Annan when he resigned over the failure of both sides to adhere to his six-point peace plan to which they had committed, said the “crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world.” After the veteran Algerian troubleshooter left Damascus on Sunday, a rebel commander said: “We are sure Brahimi will fail like the other envoys before him, but we do not want to be the reason of his failure.”Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, the Free Syrian Army commander in Aleppo, said that he and other FSA officials had held an Internet conference call with Brahimi.AFP
