Car bomb explodes in Aleppo, Brahimi to visit Tehran

New U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi will visit Iran, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after a fact-finding trip to Syria itself, an official in the Iranian Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying on Sunday.    

Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat, succeeded Kofi Annan as envoy this month and has said he would talk to Iran as he tries to push forward with his difficult quest to end the 17-month-old conflict in Syria.   

For her part, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday she was pessimistic about closing the gap with Russia on how to defuse the Syrian conflict before world leaders gather for the U.N. General Assembly later this month.    

Clinton said she made the case for increasing pressure on Assad in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a summit of Pacific Rim states in Vladivostok, Russia over the weekend.    

"If we can make progress in New York in the run-up to the U.N. General Assembly, we can certainly try," Clinton told reporters. "But we have to be realistic. We haven't seen eye-to-eye on Syria. That may continue. And if it does continue then we will work with like-minded states to support the Syrian opposition to hasten the day when Assad falls."      


On the field

On the field, a number of people were killed and others were injured when a car bomb exploded outside 3 hospitals in Aleppo Sunday evening and others were wounded in an attack against a truck carrying civilians and soldiers near Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Syrian state TV.        

Fighting continued across Syria during the day with at least eight reported killed and scores wounded, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - a Britain-based monitoring group.       

It said an air raid on a residential district in the commercial capital of Aleppo in the north killed at least four people, wounded several more and flattened a residential building.    

The Free Syrian Army said the strikes came hours after rebels overran army barracks in the Hananu neighborhood of the city.    

Syrian TV reported that the armed forces killed members of an armed group, including snipers, the near al-Ansari Mosque in Mayssaloun area of the city.   

It broadcast footage of what it said were Syrian army troops on patrol in the streets of Mayssaloun.     

The Observatory said the heaviest fighting was taking place in Homs, where two bombs exploded in a bus, killing and wounding several military officers and civilians. It did not elaborate.     The Syrian state news agency put the death toll in the explosion at four, including a woman. It said a roadside bomb struck the bus as it was travelling toward Damascus along the Mussyaf-Homs highway. It said the explosion wounded 35 people and Syrian TV broadcast pictures of the charred wreckage of a bus and a large crater in the ground.    

It also broadcast footage of army troops firing down a street in the al-Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus, and in Palestine street.      

Syrian TV reports said fighting took place between Syrian armed forces and rebels groups both areas of the capital, and showed footage of what it said were Syrian army troops confiscating a large cache of weapons in the Al-Dmeir district of the city.        

Activists also reported clashes between government forces and rebels in a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, in the central city of Homs, in the northern city of Idlib and in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour.



For the full LBCI report, watch the video above.

REUTERS/LBCI