Ibrahimi in Syria as Turkey retaliates after shells fired from Syria

U.N.-Arab League envoy Akhdar Ibrahimi arrived in Damascus on Friday to try to broker a brief ceasefire in the war between President Bashar al-Assad and rebels.          

This as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Friday for all sides involved in the conflict in Syria to observe a ceasefire during the Islamic Eid al-Adha festival next week.         

Earlier on Friday, the former U.N.-Arab League joint envoy to Syria Kofi Annan said that Iran will accept the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad if it came as a result of elections. In his press conference held at the Brookings Institute in Washington, he said that Iranians assured him that democracy is the only solution in Syria.         

On the field    

Turkey's military fired back into Syria on Friday after two shells launched from Syria landed in Turkish territory, Turkish state broadcaster TRT reported, without specifying where the incident occurred.   

Turkey has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's forces, fighting rebels in border regions, since Syrian shelling killed five Turkish civilians in a Turkish border town at the start of October.

Earlier today, Syrian fighters released cluster bombs on the area of Maaret al-Numan, the Syrian opposition announced on Friday.          

This as Syrian warplanes raided the city of Maaret al-Numan on Thursday killing 44 people including 23 children.

Also on Thursday, a suicide bomber on board a booby-trapped motorcycle blew himself up 300 meters away from the Syrian Interior Minister in Damascus’ Kfarsousa neighborhood that houses branches for Syrian security apparatuses. The blast did not lead to any casualties, a security source told AFP.