REPORT: Chemical weapons investigators to head to Syria within days -UN

U.N. inspectors are preparing to travel to Syria within days to investigate claims of chemical weapons use in the country's civil war after the Syrian government granted access to three sites, the United Nations said on Thursday.
   
"The team will depart for Syria as soon as practical and is preparing to depart within days," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.
   
The United Nations has received 13 reports of chemical weapons attacks. The Syrian government and the opposition both deny using such weapons. The U.N. inquiry will only try to establish if chemical weapons were used, not who used them.
 
Meanwhile, forty people were killed and at least 120 people were wounded  in an explosion at a weapons cache in the central Syrian city of Homs, a group opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said.
   
The explosion occurred in the south-eastern district of Wadi al-Dhahab, which the army has taken over, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group has a network of sources in the opposition and state security forces.
   
The Observatory said the casualties were soldiers and civilians and that some of the wounded were in a critical condition.

The blasts sent a massive ball of fire into the sky, causing widespread damage and panic among residents, many of whom are supporters of President Bashar Assad.
 
One resident said the explosions were so strong they cracked the walls of some buildings. Thick smoke and dust could be seen from a distance as explosions shook the ground.
 
A video posted online by activists showed a huge ball of fire over Homs neighborhoods.
 
The explosions in Homs reflected the see-saw nature of the conflict. It showed that despite significant advances by Assad's military, rebels could still strike back.
 
An official at the governor's office in Homs said about 10 rockets slammed into the neighborhood of Zahra and the nearby sports stadium, sparking a large fire and causing several casualties.
 
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations. He did not give a casualty figure.
 
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors the fighting in Syria, said 22 people were killed and dozens wounded  some critically  when rockets struck an arms depot, igniting the fire.
 
A resident of Homs corroborated that account, saying he heard blasts for more than an hour after the first explosion. He said they could be heard from the overwhelmingly pro-regime districts of Wadi Dahab and al-Walid, where the regime is known to keep arms depots.
 
"Rockets were falling on the area ... when the arms depot began to explode but we don't know if the rockets triggered the blasts," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
 
He said the explosions were so strong that "they shook parts of the city." They also shattered all windows in the area and cracked walls, he added.
 
He said he spoke with Syrian Arab Red Crescent paramedics who told him that at least 22 bodies were taken to hospitals.

On another note, Syrian state-run TV says President Bashar Assad has visited a tense Damascus suburb to inspect his troops on the occasion of the country's Army Day.
 
The visit on Thursday is Assad's first known public trip outside the capital, his seat of power, since he visited the Baba Amr district in the central city of Homs after troops seized it from rebels in March 2012.
 
Syrian TV did not provide details but the presidency's Facebook page released a photo of Assad in a blue suit and tie chatting with two soldiers before what appears to be a damaged building in Daraya.
 
Daraya, just south of Damascus, was held by rebels for a long time and it took the army weeks of heavy fighting to regain control earlier this year.

This comes as Assad lauded his troops' struggle against opposition forces, saying they are fighting the fiercest of wars but that he is confident they will win in the country's conflict, now in its third year.
 
Bashar Assad's comments followed several significant regime gains against the rebels on key battlefields recently, mostly in the central province of Homs and near the capital, Damascus.
 
His remarks coincided with an alarm raised Thursday by five major aid agencies, which warned that the Syrian refugee crisis is stretching aid efforts to their limits.
 
More than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against the Assad family's four-decade rule began in March 2011. The revolt later escalated into a civil war, which has uprooted millions of people from their homes.
 
In a statement marking Syria's Army Day, Assad said his men are confronting the "fiercest barbaric war in modern history."
 
"Had we in Syria not been confident of victory, we wouldn't have been able to resist" for over two years, Assad said in a statement carried by the state news agency SANA.
 
In an apparent reference to wide expectations over the past two years that the opposition forces would remove him from power, Assad told his troops: "You have surprised the world with your steadfastness and ability to face difficulties and achieve results."
 
The rebels suffered two major setbacks during a wide-ranging government offensive in central Syria. In June, Assad's army recaptured the strategic town of Qusair near the Lebanese border, and this week, government troops took control of a district in the city of Homs that had long been an opposition stronghold.
 
The five aid agencies  including CARE International, Oxfam, Danish Refugee Council, Handicap International and World Vision  said they are increasingly concerned that the international response is failing to match the scale of the crisis.
 
Their joint statement said more than 1.4 million Syrians  or 80 percent of all Syrian refugees  are now living in tents, temporary settlements, or over-crowded and expensive rented accommodations.
 
"People are living in shopping centers, empty garages or make-shift tents on derelict land," said Oxfam's response manager in charge of Syria, Colette Fearon. "They are struggling to survive on little or nothing, and many are falling through the cracks with no immediate end in sight to the conflict the problem will only get worse."
 
"We need to make sure assistance reaches refugees no matter where they are," she added.
 
Last month, assistant U.N. secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, said an estimated 5,000 Syrians are dying every month in the country's civil war and refugees are fleeing at a rate not seen since the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
 
Because of huge number of people fleeing the conflict, refugees are pursuing whatever options they can to find shelter, the aid groups' statement said.
 
Many arrive in shelters across the border with just the clothes on their backs and need help to cover basic costs such as food, safe drinking water and a roof over their heads, it added.
 
Health care has become a luxury that many refugees cannot afford, and vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and persons with disabilities or chronic disease, have no access to essential services beyond what organizations such as Handicap International can provide.
 
"People left Syria with nothing and are trying to carve out a new life for themselves," said Hugh Fenton of the Danish Refugee Council. "But they are starting from scratch and everything is expensive. Many are getting into increasing debt in order to survive."         


AP/REUTERS


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