Suicide bomb kills 50 soldiers in Hama, blast in Damascus leaves 11 dead

A suicide car bombing killed at least 50 members of the Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on Monday in Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.    

"A fighter from the (al-Qaeda inspired) Nusra Front blew himself up ... in the Hama countryside. At least 50 were killed," said Rami Abdelrahman, the head of the observatory.         

Another blast rocked a square in Damascus neighborhood of Mezzeh, causing severe injuries, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The bomb killed 11 people and wounded dozens more, including children, Syrian state media and an activist group reported.

On the field, the Syrian army bombarded rebel strongholds in southern Damascus on Monday with artillery and from the air, hours after opposition fighters attacked militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, opposition activists said.             

Warplanes fired rockets and tanks and artillery pounded the neighborhoods of Sbeineh, Yalda, Bibla, al-Tadamun and Hajar a-Aswad, they said. The working-class Sunni Muslim neighborhoods have been at the forefront of the 19-month-old revolt against Assad.        

At a time when Syrian opposition groups are proceeding with their meetings in Doha, Damascus considered that foreign powers are using these talks as a pretext to further aggravate the situation in the country.         

In this regard, the Syrian Vice Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad said that the solution in Syria would only be reached through national dialogue.        


International positions:    

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is supplying arms to Syria under Soviet-era commitments and were meant for defense against external threats, not to support President Bashar al-Assad.        

Russia sold the Syrian government $1 billion worth of weapons last year and has made clear it would oppose an arms embargo in the United Nations Security Council, contending that rebels would get weapons illegally anyway.           

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Egypt's state al-Ahram daily in an interview published on Monday that the arms still being sent to Damascus were part of old Soviet contracts and did not violate international law.           

"We do not side with any faction in Syria's internal battle," Lavrov was quoted as saying. "As for the Russian-Syrian technical military cooperation, it aims to support Syria's defense capabilities in the face of external political threat, and not to back Bashar al-Assad."        

He accused foreign powers of arming the opposition to topple the government in breach of international law, adding that such weapons could fall into the hands of al Qaeda fighters.          
"It was the Soviet Union that supplied Syria with main weapons but at present we are in the process of finalizing the implementation of our commitments which are linked primarily to the supply of some air defense systems," Lavrov told al-Ahram.              

"These military exports are of a defensive nature and do not conflict with international treaties," he said.             

Lavrov, who met Lakhdar Brahimi, the international mediator on Syria, in Cairo on Sunday, said the Syrian government and the opposition should be forced to sit down to negotiations. Lavrov was due to meet the Egyptian foreign minister later on Monday.             

In a related context, Japanese officials announced that Tokyo will be hosting an international conference later this month to intensify pressure on the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.


REUTERS