Suicide bombs hit Syria troops north of Damascus

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Suicide bombers targeted Syrian troops and a hospital on Wednesday in the rugged Qalamoun hills north of Damascus, where rebels are struggling to reverse government gains that threaten to cut one of their chief supply lines, activists and officials said.

There was no immediate word on casualties from the attacks in Nabak and Deir Attiyeh. The towns belong to a string of communities along a route used by rebels to bring supplies from nearby Lebanon to opposition-held enclaves outside the capital and to the central city of Homs.

A suicide car bomber targeted a checkpoint manned by Syrian soldiers while another blew up near a security headquarters. Both were on the outskirts of Nabak, said Rami Abdurrahman from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and another activist based near the town.

In Deir Attiyeh, two suicide car bombers detonated their explosives outside a hospital, killing the guards, Syrian state television said. It said the attackers were Saudi citizens.

State television also said that troops repelled the attackers, and that the attackers tried to vandalize hospital equipment. It was not possible to reconcile the two versions.

Abdurrahman said the rebels belonged to the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. He obtains his information from a network of activists on the ground.

On another note, a UN General Assembly committee on Tuesday condemned Syria for widespread human rights abuses and expressed concern about such violations in Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, but also welcomed pledges by Iran and Myanmar's presidents to improve some areas.

The draft resolution on Iran was approved with 83 votes in favor, 36 against and 62 abstentions; the draft on Syria was adopted with 123 votes in favor, 13 against and 46 abstentions; while the drafts on North Korea and Myanmar passed by consensus, although some states disassociated themselves with the texts.

The draft resolutions were approved by the 193-nation assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights, and will be put to formal votes next month in the General Assembly. They are expected to pass with similar support.

The resolutions on these four countries have become an annual rite. They deepen international pressure and further isolate those states but have no legal consequences. All four countries lobby hard against the adoption of the resolutions.

More than 100,000 people have been killed during a 2-1/2 year civil war in Syria that has forced millions to flee.

Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari accused Saudi Arabia of "fanning the flames" of the conflict in the country. Syria has long accused Gulf Arab states Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Britain and France, of arming the rebels.

Ja'afari said the Third Committee was being used for "interventionist political objectives."

Chemical weapons:

A spokesman for the global chemical weapons watchdog says destroying Syria's stockpile of poison gas and nerve agents at sea is a possible alternative to finding a country willing to host the destruction.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons aims to destroy some 1,300 metric tons of Syrian toxic agents by mid-2014, but the plan was dealt a blow last week when Albania rejected a US request to host destruction. Authorities in Belgium and Norway also have ruled those countries out as locations for the risky operation.

OPCW spokesman Christian Chartier said Wednesday the alternative of destruction at sea, on a boat or floating rig, is a "feasible" possibility.

Chartier told The Associated Press, "All options are on the table." No further details have been released.

AP/REUTERS