Suicide bombing in Syrian capital kills 10

An anti-Syrian regime pro­tester shouts slo­gans against Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad dur­ing a demon­stra­tion after the Fri­day prayer, in Beirut, Lebanon. Fri­day has typ­i­cally been a day of anti-government protests since an upris­ing against the regime began 13 months ago. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

KARIN LAUB

Asso­ci­ated Press

BEIRUT — Two weeks into a cease-fire agree­ment, there still was no peace in Syria: Secu­rity agents in Dam­as­cus col­lected the remains of 10 peo­ple killed in a sui­cide bomb­ing. Activists reported troops fir­ing on pro­test­ers. Video showed a crowd car­ry­ing a slain boy to U.N. observers as proof of regime violence.

The head of the United Nations said Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad’s con­tin­ued crack­down on protests has reached an “intol­er­a­ble stage,” and that the U.N. will try to speed up the deploy­ment of up to 300 mon­i­tors to Syria. Only 15 are there now.

“The gov­ern­ment of Syria must live up to its promises to the world,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple poured into the streets across Syria for weekly anti-regime marches after Mus­lim noon prayers Fri­day. Ama­teur video from the cen­tral city of Homs, where the pres­ence of U.N. observers helped halt weeks of artillery attacks, showed rows of men lin­ing up in a main street, hold­ing each other by the shoul­ders as they sang and danced.

In another protest, peo­ple held up 45 squares of card­board with writ­ing and draw­ings that — when viewed together from above — showed a pic­ture of Assad and the words “oppres­sion, cor­rup­tion, despo­tism, demo­li­tion.” When they simul­ta­ne­ously flipped over the squares, it cre­ated a new mes­sage that read: “Toward a mod­ern soci­ety that is more devel­oped and sensible.”

Troops have rou­tinely opened fire on protests since the upris­ing against Assad began 13 months ago, but there appeared to be fewer vio­lent inci­dents Fri­day than in pre­vi­ous weeks. Still, the Britain-based Syr­ian Obser­va­tory for Human Rights said five pro­test­ers were killed by fire from the secu­rity forces, includ­ing a 10-year-old boy.

A plan bro­kered by spe­cial envoy Kofi Annan pro­posed an April 12 cease-fire, to be fol­lowed by talks between the regime and the oppo­si­tion. Since that date, the U.N. has said the regime has bro­ken many of its truce promises, such as with­draw­ing forces from towns and cities. Rebel fight­ers have also kept up shoot­ing and bomb­ing attacks on Syr­ian secu­rity forces.

With the U.S. and France in the lead, West­ern pow­ers have threat­ened tougher U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil mea­sures if Assad keeps break­ing his promises, although Syria’s allies Rus­sia and China could use their veto pow­ers in the coun­cil to shield him.

British For­eign Office Min­is­ter Alis­tair Burt said his gov­ern­ment will seek “robust action” in the coun­cil if Syria doesn’t com­ply with Annan’s plan.

The sui­cide bomber in Dam­as­cus det­o­nated an explo­sives belt Fri­day near mem­bers of the secu­rity forces, killing at least nine peo­ple and wound­ing 26, the state-run news agency SANA reported. The remains of two other peo­ple also were found, one believed to be the bomber, accord­ing to Health Min­is­ter Nader al-Halqi. The min­is­ter said seven police were among the dead.

The blast went off near a mosque in the down­town Midan neigh­bor­hood, an area of oppo­si­tion sym­pa­thiz­ers. The gov­ern­ment said it would use an iron fist against those “who might intim­i­date res­i­dents and spread anar­chy in the coun­try,” SANA reported.

Video on Syr­ian TV showed white smoke bil­low­ing from under a bridge as peo­ple streamed out of a mosque. The streets were stained with blood.

An Asso­ci­ated Press reporter saw remains of the dead in the street and a police bus with shat­tered win­dows. As police cor­doned off the area, secu­rity agents wear­ing gloves col­lected the remains from the street and piled them onto a sheet.

Anas Haqqi said he was walk­ing with his father when the bomb went off. “I fell on the ground,” said the 13-year-old, who was being treated for shoul­der and leg wounds at Muj­tahid hospital.

Three smaller explo­sions else­where in the cap­i­tal killed one person.

In recent months, there has been a string of bomb­ings in Dam­as­cus and else­where. The regime blamed Friday’s attack on unspec­i­fied “ter­ror­ists” — the term it uses to describe oppo­si­tion forces that it says are car­ry­ing out a for­eign con­spir­acy. Oppo­si­tion activists deny any role, say­ing such blasts are car­ried out by gov­ern­ment forces and meant to tar­nish Assad’s opponents.

Some U.S. offi­cials sug­gested after pre­vi­ous bomb­ings that al-Qaida mil­i­tants may be join­ing the fray.

The bomb­ings posed the lat­est chal­lenge to attempts to end the Syria cri­sis; the upris­ing began with largely peace­ful protests but has turned into an armed insur­gency in response to a relent­less regime crackdown.

Ban said he was “gravely alarmed” by the con­tin­ued killings. He said he hopes the speedy deploy­ment of all the truce mon­i­tors “will change the dynam­ics on the ground,” but that vio­lence must stop even before the full con­tin­gent of 300 gets to Syria.

A small advance team that has been on the ground since mid-April is often greeted with both hope and frus­tra­tion by residents.

In the south­ern town of Daraa, the birth­place of the upris­ing, ama­teur video posted online showed two white U.N. Land Cruis­ers sur­rounded by peo­ple Thurs­day evening. At one point, peo­ple close to the vehi­cles lift up the body of a boy said to have been shot to death by Syr­ian troops.

Oth­ers jumped on one of the U.N. cars, or banged on it with their fists. Yet oth­ers formed a cor­don to try to pro­tect the observers.

In another town, res­i­dents wel­comed observers as effec­tive shields against regime attacks.

On Fri­day, the U.N. sec­re­tary gen­eral appointed a for­mer Nor­we­gian army chief, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, as the head of the expanded observer mis­sion. His Mid­dle East expe­ri­ence includes a stint with U.N. peace­keep­ers in Lebanon in 1989–1990 and head­ing the first U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion in the region known as UNTSO from 2009 to 2011. It was estab­lished after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war to mon­i­tor a cease-fire and now oper­ates as an observer mission.

Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said he hopes the group of 15 mon­i­tors will grow to 25 by Mon­day, with 100 there by mid-May.

For now, the team is stretched thin, with two mon­i­tors each deployed in four major flash­points: Homs, Daraa, the cen­tral city of Hama and the city of Idlib in the north­west, said a team spokesman, Neeraj Singh.

Posted by AP News on Apr 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.