BEIRUT: Senior U.S. official Jeffrey Feltman said the Arab League monitoring mission should be given a chance to determine the credibility of the Syrian regime, but hinted at further international options should their peace deal fall through.

Monitors tasked with observing Syria’s commitment to allowing peaceful protests will witness the first Friday following their arrival two days ago. Opposition activists are looking forward to a massive protest day to rest their case before the monitors and put pressure on the Syrian government.

“Let’s give the monitoring mission some time ... but we are not talking about a long time since it is easy and relatively quickly to verify these issues,” Feltman said an interview published Friday by the local newspaper An-Nahar.

“If the Arab League report is negative, then the international community should study other options to stop violence,” Feltman cautioned.

Anti-Assad activists have said the monitoring mission is too small and easily restricted by state security agents determined to cover up abuses. There have also been questions about its leader, a Sudanese general whose government has defied an international war crimes court over bloodshed in Darfur.

Syrian security forces shot dead Thursday 25 protesters, six of them in a city being visited by Arab League monitors checking on President Bashar Assad’s compliance with a pledge to stop a military crackdown on unrest.

The Arab League is hoping its deal with Assad can put an end to nine months of bloodshed in which well over 5,000 people have been killed, by a United Nations count, provoking international sanctions against Damascus and raising fears of wider conflict.

Feltman reiterated that Washington is not concerned about the nature of the monitoring mission or who heads it, but rather what the Syrian regime is going to do in terms of implementing the Arab League plan.

“What is important is not what the mission would say at the beginning of its task but what it says in its report to the [Arab] League next month,” he said.

Sources told An-Nahar, in an article translated from Arabic by The Daily Star, that Washington believes the Arab League mission is likely to fail.

“This would pave the way for other options beginning mid-next month, including the return to the U.N. Security Council or taking coordinated action between Washington and its European, Arab and Turkish allies,” one source told An-Nahar.

Regarding Syrian cross-border incursions into Lebanon, Feltman said that he had raised the issue with Lebanese officials as well as U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly during his recent visit to Lebanon.

The former U.S. Ambassador slammed Syria's role in providing a “safe passage to Al-Qaeda terrorists” from its territory into Iraq.

He pointed out that statements made by former Syrian officials before him and other U.S. officials that border control is impossible to achieve suggest that “if it is true that Al-Qaeda is behind the recent [twin] bombings in Damascus, then the Syrian regime must realize that it had contributed in bringing them in.”

Feltman reiterated Washington’s concerns over Syria’s violations of Lebanese sovereignty.

“We are very worried from attempts by Bashar Assad to export his problems to Lebanon,” he said.