UN team quits, Brahimi ‘scared’

The head of the now-defunct UN observer mission left Syria on Saturday, after new international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said he was “scared” of the scale of the task he faces to try to end the escalating conflict. Brahimi, who takes over formally from former UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan next month, told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday that he was “honoured, flattered, humbled and scared” at the prospect of leading international efforts to broker peace in Syria’s worsening 17-month conflict. He said the Syrian people “will be our first masters.” “We will consider their interests above and before anyone else. We will try to help as much as we can, we will not spare any effort,” added Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat who brokered the 1989 accord that ended Lebanon’s civil war. The head of the UN observer team, General Babacar Gaye, left Damascus on Saturday.