Amid news from Baghdad that al-Qaeda has infiltrated Syria and has been carrying out terrorist attacks including the attack on the Syrian television station last month, the United Nations monitoring mission's head says that a cease-fire must take place before monitors will be allowed back into that country.

Major General Robert Mood says that the violence has reached “unprecedented” levels in Syria. Speaking to reporters in Damascus, he said that the escalating violence has obstructed the monitors’ “ability to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local dialogue.” He went on to tell reporters, “We cannot and we will not turn our eyes and ears away from your plight, and we’ll continue our work to find new paths to political dialogue and peaceful resolution to the crisis.” operations of the monitoring team were suspended on June 16th.

Today, it is reported by the Syrian Observatory that 27 people were killed in violence today, this comes after the conflict there took 99 lives yesterday.

In Baghdad, Iraq’s foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari stated that al-Qaeda officers were helping carry out attacks in Syria and are responsible for much of the violence in that country.

Al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front said on Tuesday that they are responsible for a number of attacks that have taken place in Syria against pro-government forces there, including the attack on the television station that took the lives of seven employees.

But, the Free Syrian Army says that they repudiated terrorism and deny any cooperation with the terrorist group.

Tomorrow, France will host another “Friends of Syria” meeting, where about 100 delegates will be in attendance. Like the April and February meetings, China and Russia will not attend, both of those countries have used their veto power to block several attempts to sanction Syria over the turmoil.