Thousands protest, bombs rock Syrian capital

DAMASCUS: Tens of thousands protested across Syria on Friday as a deadly suicide bombing rocked the capital, killing 11 people and fuelling growing scepticism over the prospects of a UN-backed peace plan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people, including a  child, were killed as regime forces opened fire to disperse protests.

“Tens of thousands of people protested today in various areas of the  country,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based group, told AFP.

He said one protester was killed in the village Daf al-Shok in Damascus  province. Another died in the Sakhur district of northern Aleppo, Syria’s  second city, and the child was killed in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

Three members of the security forces and a deserter were also killed in  other clashes across the country, the Syrian Observatory said.

At least 11 people died and 28 were wounded in the Damascus bomb blast  which hit as worshippers were leaving weekly Muslim prayers at nearby Zein  al-Abidin mosque in the central Midan district, state television said.

The report blamed “terrorists,” the term used by President Bashar  al-Assad’s regime to refer to the armed opposition, and said civilians and  security force members were among the casualties.

TV footage showed gruesome images, including a severed hand and leg.

The official SANA news agency reported the interior ministry as saying “it  will not tolerate the armed terrorist groups and vowed to strike with an iron  fist those who are terrorising citizens.”    A separate blast hit an industrial zone of Damascus where there were no  reports of casualties, but three security agents were wounded in an explosion  in the coastal city of Banias, the Observatory said.

Assad’s regime has repeatedly blamed “armed terrorist groups” for the  violence, and for failing to abide by a putative ceasefire since April 12.

Neighbouring Lebanon on Friday intercepted a ship suspected of carrying  weapons destined for Syria’s rebels, a Lebanese security official said.

But the US State Department said Washington still believed the regime was  responsible for “the bulk of the violations” of the ceasefire, warning it was  ready to return to the UN Security Council for action on Syria.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also said Damascus was in contravention of a six-point  peace deal by keeping troops and heavy weapons in urban areas, and expressed  alarm at reports of population centres being shelled.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was “extremely concerned  about the continued violence in Syria in violation of the ceasefire”.    Ashton said it was “clear that the Syrian government is not fulfilling its  obligations and is failing to meet its commitments to withdraw its troops and  heavy weapons from population centres”.    Rights group Amnesty International said on Friday it had received the names  of 362 people reportedly killed in Syria since UN observers deployed last week  to monitor the peace deal.

More than 9,000 people have died since a popular uprising erupted against  Assad’s regime in March 2011, the UN says, while non-governmental groups put  the figure at more than 11,100.

Opposition figure Walid al-Bunni said the peace deal drawn up by UN-Arab  League envoy Kofi Annan was likely to fail because it obliges Syria to allow  free demonstrations.

“If the Annan plan, which provides for peaceful demonstrations, is applied,  millions of Syrians will take to the streets and the regime will fall,” he told  AFP in Cairo.

Syria’s exiled Muslim Brotherhood urged Ban to acknowledge that Damascus  had failed to honour the peace plan and to suspend its UN membership until a  transitional government representing the Syrian people is formed.

“We ask Ban Ki-moon to announce that Assad’s government has failed to  honour the peace plan and to declare the plan finished... at a time when dozens  of innocent people are dying,” the group said in a statement.

Ban himself on Friday, during a visit to New Delhi, reiterated his alarm at  the continuing violence in Syria.

“The continued repression of the civilian population is totally  unacceptable. It must stop immediately. The government of Syria must live up to  its promises to the world,” he said.

The shaky truce is to be monitored by 300 UN observers due in the coming  weeks. A small advance team is already in Syria, and the numbers will be  doubled to 30 by Monday, according to a UN official.

The UN on Friday appointed Norway’s Major General Robert Mood to head the  monitoring force. Mood, 54, negotiated conditions for the advance team with  Damascus.

Western nations have expressed strong doubts that the observers will be  able to work, however, and the United States has already warned it may not  renew the mission’s initial three-month mandate.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Syria was not respecting the Annan  peace plan, but added: “We have no intention to intervene in Syria. We believe  the right way forward is to ensure a political, peaceful solution.”   

Meanwhile the UN refugee agency’s Syria Regional Refugee Response web page  says there are more than 65,000 Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries. - AFP