RABAT, Morocco — In what amounted to a surprise reprieve, the Arab League offered to send civilian and military monitors to Syria on Wednesday to determine whether it was abiding by a league-brokered peace plan to end the crackdown on the country's eight-month uprising. The move countered the league's startling decision five days earlier to suspend Syria.
In a meeting of foreign ministers here in the Moroccan capital, the league offered Syria a new deadline of three days to accept the plan, which calls for the government to withdraw its troops from cities and stop firing on protesters. The move effectively delayed Syria's suspension, suggesting that the league still believed its plan was viable, despite a death toll this month that activists put at nearly 400.
The league's move appeared to be a last-ditch attempt at diplomacy, though officials were reluctant to describe it as such. Syria has long played a pivotal role in the 22-member league, and appeared to have been taken aback by Saturday's decision to suspend its membership. The league did not say what would happen if Syria failed to comply with the latest offer.
"What is happening in Syria is very sad to all of us," Qatar's foreign minister, Sheik Hamad Bin Jassim Jabr al-Thani, told reporters in Rabat on Wednesday evening. "We must take difficult decisions and force Syria to respect its obligations."
"We should stop wasting time while people are getting killed," he added.
There was no immediate response from the Syrian government. The government of President Bashar al-Assad refused to send a representative to the foreign ministers' meeting.
The league's turnabout raised questions about whether an organization long derided in the region as ineffectual, even a joke, could take on a more vigorous role in a tumultuous time. Expelling Syria would have offered the most vivid illustration of the country's growing isolation, as European and American sanctions accumulate, countries withdraw ambassadors from Damascus and its former interlocutors become sharp critics.
"Nobody can predict what will happen next," said an editorial Wednesday in Al Quds Al Arabi, a pan-Arab newspaper based in London. "But what we can be sure about is that the time for diplomatic solutions has come to an end."
France decided to withdraw its ambassador on Wednesday and close its missions in two Syrian cities after the league's Saturday vote prompted attacks on the diplomatic missions of France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Turkey has already withdrawn the families of its diplomatic staff there, and the American ambassador, citing safety concerns, left last month, though American officials say he will eventually return.
More attacks on diplomatic missions occurred Wednesday. The United Arab Emirates, the national news agency said, condemned an attack on its embassy in Damascus. It said supporters of Mr. Assad threw rocks and debris, and scrawled graffiti on its walls. The Moroccan Embassy was pelted with rocks and eggs, and some reports said that the ambassador was withdrawn.
The vote on Saturday also split the Syrian opposition, with exile groups hailing the move while some dissidents inside Syria worried that it might serve as a pretext for foreign intervention.
"Syria won this round," said Louay Hussein, an opposition figure in Damascus. "We avoided turning this into an international crisis. Until yesterday, there were indications the Arab League was going to escalate. Our hope was that this would only be a warning."
"Through sending Arab monitors, we can exercise pressure on the regime," Mr. Hussein said in a phone interview. "We can uncover its lies and its fabrications."
The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said that 20 people were killed across the country on Wednesday, with the rising death toll sharpening fears that the uprising might be taking on a more violent character. The group said that 376 people had been killed, among them 26 children, since Syria first said it agreed to the Arab League peace plan on Nov. 2. The United Nations has estimated that more than 3,500 have died since March.
Syria has insisted that it has adhered to the Arab League's plan. It offered an amnesty to insurgents if they had not committed crimes, and said it released 1,730 prisoners. Arab League officials say tens of thousands remain in detention.
Outside Damascus, the Free Syrian Army, made up of army deserters, claimed responsibility for an attack on a major intelligence installation in Harasta, on the outskirts of Damascus, and said that its fighters had clashed with armed forces in three other suburbs of the capital. On Monday, clashes between defectors and government troops near Dara'a, in southern Syria, are believed to have killed dozens.
Others played down the significance of the assault. The Local Coordination Committees said the attack in Harasta was probably an act of vengeance by protesters who were imprisoned and interrogated there. Another group said that only two rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the building, and that there was no apparent damage.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, said the United States had little information about the attack, and he laid the blame for it on the Assad government's crackdown.
"It's not surprising that we are now seeing this kind of violence," he said. "We don't condone it in any way, shape or form, but let's be very clear that it is the brutal tactics of Assad and his regime in dealing with what began as a nonviolent movement" that are "now taking Syria down a very dangerous path."
The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, joined the Arab League meeting in Morocco. Turkey has played a pivotal role in the crisis, as its relationship with Syria has gone from warm to hostile. Turkey has threatened sanctions, but has not yet imposed them. Mr. Davutoglu said Turkey was satisfied with the league's decision, but urged Syria to abandon violence.
"The regime should meet the demands of its people," said Mr. Davutoglu, who tried to broker a peace deal in August, only to see the crackdown gather force. "The bloodshed cannot continue like this."
Aida Alami reported from Rabat, and Nada Bakri from Beirut, Lebanon. Reporting was contributed by Anthony Shadid and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Alan Cowell from London, Steven Lee Myers from Washington and Steven Erlanger from Paris.
A version of this article appeared in print on November 17, 2011, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Offering Reprieve to Syria, Arab League Proposes Monitors for Peace Plan.
Original Page: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/world/middleeast/syria-defectors-attack-base-arab-league-suspension.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all