Car bomb kill 10 in Damascus

Car bomb kill 10 in Damascus

At least 10 people have been killed in a car bombing in the Syrian capital Damascus on the fourth day of a supposed ceasefire, state media reports.

State TV said women and children were among the victims of the attack in the south-eastern district of Jaramana.

Earlier, activists said government jets had bombed Harasta, in the north-east.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who brokered the truce over the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, said he regretted that both sides were not complying with it.

"The situation is bad and getting worse," he told reporters in Moscow after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

But Mr Brahimi nevertheless insisted that he would not be discouraged by the apparent failure of his initiative, which he had hoped would allow a political process to develop and lead to a permanent end to hostilities.

"It will not discourage us because Syria is very important and the people of Syria deserve our support and interest, "We think this civil war must end... and the new Syria has to be built by all its sons," Brahimi said.
At least 110 people - including 39 civilians, 34 rebel fighters and 35 security forces personnel - were killed on Sunday, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group.

Cross-border shelling
Reports say there has been no real pause in hostilities in Syria since the four-day ceasefire supposedly came into force on Friday morning. More than 420 people are said to have died.

On Monday morning, videos were posted online by activists purportedly showing government aircraft bombing Harasta. The footage also showed people being dug out of the rubble and fleeing the area.

"The army is conducting raids on agricultural lands and orchards around the capital because the rebels are trying to regroup and to strengthen their positions there," a security official told the AFP news agency.

In a separate development on Monday, the Turkish military fired back after a shell fired from Syria landed near the village of Besaslan in the southern province of Hatay, state media said, amid clashes between Syrian soldiers and rebels in the nearby border town of Harim.

Turkish forces have responded to every cross-border shelling since five Turks were killed on 3 October. No injuries were reported on Monday.

According to opposition and human rights activists, more than 35,000 people have been killed since protests against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in March 2011, while the UN estimates at least 20,000 have died.

BBC/Cokey