Blast near Damascus kills 12 people and injures 48 others

Syria's state news agency says a booby-trapped car has exploded in a Damascus suburb, killing 12 citizens and injuring 48. SANA says Tuesday's blast in Jaramana targeted a funeral procession for two people who were killed a day earlier in the area.
     
It says it is the third bombing in Jaramana in the past 24 hours.
    
SANA says that an explosive device detonated in a car in Jaramana on Monday killed its driver. It says the device was attached to the car by an armed "terrorist" group.
    
Another car blew up in the area overnight, also killing the driver.
     
No further details were immediately available. It was not clear whether the targeted funeral procession Tuesday was for those killed in the earlier blasts.

This as Damascus Reef is witnessing sporadic shelling and raids conducted by the regime troops on Tuesday, a day after 190 people were killed across Syria the majority of which were civilians, according to activists.      

Many were injured by indiscriminate mortar shelling and helicopter machine guns on Ain Terma in western Ghouta, according to the General Authority of the Syrian Revolution that stated that the security forces are launching a wide campaign of raids in the town of Kalamoum – Qutayf in Damascus Reef.    

Activists published a video on the Internet showing 5 mutilated bodies of young men.   

For its part, SANA reported that the concerned authorities carried on Tuesday a military operation in al-Bandara neighborhood, killing five “terrorists”. SANA added that the authorities also countered an armed terrorist group that fired mortar shells at the town of Mecherfeh in western Homs.       


Influx of Syrians on the rise   

This as the pace of Syrian refugees arriving in Za'atri camp in northern Jordan has doubled, with 10,200 arriving in the past week, heralding what could be a bigger mass movement, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.           

"We do believe this could be the start of a major, a much larger influx into Jordan," Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva.    

The U.N. refugee agency said that up to 200,000 Syrian refugees could flee to Turkey if the conflict continues to deepen, the on Tuesday.    

"We are already looking at potentially up to 200,000 and are working with the Turkish government to make the necessary plans," Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters in Geneva. "We are ready to send in stocks at very short notice."    

Some 74,112 Syrian refugees have registered in Turkey, which is building at least five new camps in addition to the existing nine, the UNHCR said.       


Positions

Earlier on Tuesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem had accused the U.S.  of encouraging opposition fighters to combat the regime of President Bashar Assad.                               

In an interview published Tuesday by The Independent Daily, Moallem said that Americans are using Syria to face Iran’s influence in the Middle East, adding that they "exaggerated Tehran’s nuclear capacities to sell arms to Gulf countries".               


REUTERS/LBCI