Car bomb kills 20 outside mosque in Syria as Brahimi meets opposition

UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi meets the head of the Free Syrian Army and other commanders as part of a regional tour aimed at rallying support for peace talks.

A man injured in a car bombing outside a mosque near Damascus arrives at a hospital on Friday. Sana / AFP

DAMASCUS // A car bomb outside a mosque near Damascus killed at least 20 people yesterday as a monitoring group expressed mounting concern over thousands of besieged civilians.

Dozens of people were wounded in the explosion in the town of Suq Wadi Barada, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, indicating that the death toll could rise.

The town is under rebel control, but troops loyal to President Bashar Al Assad were positioned just outside it, it said.

State news agency SANA said “the car exploded while the terrorists were packing it with explosives near the Osama Bin Zeid mosque. Terrorists and civilians were killed.”

The Observatory said at least three of the dead were children, and SANA said a seven-year-old child was killed.

The outskirts of the capital have seen fierce fighting in recent days as Mr Al Assad’s troops have sought to tighten the noose around rebel areas under siege for months.

On Thursday Syrian troops captured a town south-east of Damascus, which a military source described as an “important centre for terrorists,” referring to the rebels who have been battling the regime since 2011.

The operation was part of a larger effort to close in on Eastern Ghouta, a ring of suburbs besieged by the army for months, which was targeted in an August chemical attack that killed hundreds of people.

UN and US officials have recently expressed concern about Eastern Ghouta and other besieged Damascus suburbs, following reports of severe food shortages and rising malnutrition.

The Observatory yesterday described a similarly dire situation in the central city of Homs, where it said some 3,000 civilians are trapped in an area sealed off by regime forces for more than a year.

“Three thousands civilians, among them 500 aged over 70, are living exclusively off the little food that had been stored in the besieged districts of Homs,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Further north, in the Sfeirah district near Aleppo, some 130,000 Syrians have fled non-stop heavy bombing in a “massive exodus” this month, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has staff on the ground.

Some 115,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria’s uprising in March 2011 and millions have been displaced.

The mushrooming humanitarian crisis, and the initial success in implementing a US-Russian accord to dismantle Syria’s chemical arsenal, have spurred renewed efforts to convene peace talks.

But despite pressure from its Western and Arab backers, the fractured Syrian opposition has yet to decide whether to attend the so-called Geneva 2 talks proposed for next month.

The opposition has insisted that Mr Al Assad step down as part of any political settlement, which Damascus says is off the table.

UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met the head of the mainstream Free Syrian Army and other commanders Thursday as part of a regional tour aimed at rallying support for the talks.

FSA chief Gen Selim Idriss “reaffirmed that we are all striving for a solution and for the bloodshed to stop,” FSA spokesman Louay Muqdad said.

“He also said the root of the problem — Bashar Al Assad — needs to be addressed.”

Mr Al Assad said on Monday that the “factors are not yet in place” for the conference, and has regularly dismissed talks with any opponents with ties to foreign states or to the rebels fighting his troops.

Mr Muqdad said Gen Idriss “insisted the FSA wants a democratic, free state in Syria, the fall of the (Assad) regime, the establishment of a transitional government and for the criminals to be tried.”

“We want a solution, but it must begin with making the killers accountable,” Mr Muqdad said.

Although Arab League chief Nabil Al Arabi has said Geneva 2 would begin on November 23, Mr Brahimi has said there could be no talks without a “credible” opposition presence.

*Agence France-Presse