The Arab League has turned to the United Nations for help after admitting "mistakes" in its Syria monitoring mission, which has come in for withering criticism for its failure to stem bloodletting.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Feltman, the US assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, was on Thursday, January 5, to hold talks in Cairo with the Arab League about the Syrian crisis, amid mounting frustration over the unrelenting violence.

His meeting comes as President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which accuses the United States of "gross interference" in Arab affairs, said it freed 552 people detained for involvement in unrest and who have "no blood on their hands."

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, who heads an Arab League task force on Syria, on Wednesday, January 4, discussed the deadly protest crackdown with UN leader Ban Ki-moon in New York.

"We are coming here for technical help and to see the experience the UN has, because this is the first time the Arab League is involved in sending monitors, and there are some mistakes," Sheikh Hamad said.

A UN spokesman said only that Ban and the sheikh "discussed practical measures by which the United Nations could support the observer mission of the Arab League in Syria," The Telegraph reported.