Suicide bombs hit army as Syria opposition talks drag: Twin suicide bombings killed at least 20 soldiers in Syri... http://bit.ly/Z5G91Q
6:37 PM - 10 Nov 12 · Details
Suicide bombs hit army as Syria opposition talks drag
By AFP
Posted Sunday, November 11 2012 at 01:16
Posted Sunday, November 11 2012 at 01:16
Twin suicide bombings killed at least 20 soldiers in Syria's south on Saturday, a watchdog said, as a unity deal still eluded the opposition despite several days of foreign-backed efforts.
The opposition talks in Doha, Qatar, saw the Syrian National Council vying to keep its leading role in the face of US- and Arab-backed proposals to form a government-in-waiting that could win deeper international support.
In Damascus, Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi called for a national dialogue, and said the army was fighting to boost the chance for talks.
"The only way to succeed in Syria is to sit down at the table to launch a national dialogue," Zohbi said. "The opposition must accept the choice of dialogue and... the army, by facing down terrorism, is protecting this dialogue."
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad suffered a new blow, however, as two suicide car bombings tore through an officers' club in the southern city of Daraa, cradle of the nearly 20-month uprising.
The attacks killed 20 soldiers and possibly many more, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The two bombings were the result of suicide attacks, carried out by two men who drove vehicles loaded with explosives into the garden a few minutes apart," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
State news agency SANA reported that three car bombings killed seven people and wounded many, but did not say they were at a military position.
It also said a car bomb had wounded nine people in the southern Damascus neighbourhood of Daf al-Shawk, while state television said a rocket wounded two girls in the capital's Christian district of George Khoury.
Elsewhere, the army retook a stretch of the Damascus-Aleppo highway used to send its reinforcements to main northern battlefields, said the Observatory.
Regime forces had "gradually advanced over the past 10 days to regain control of several villages that fell in (early) October to the rebels to the west of the Damascus-Aleppo highway," Abdel Rahman told AFP.
But the army had so far failed to enter the strategic rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan, where fighting intensified after soldiers in the besieged nearby military base of Wadi Deif received supplies.
SNC under pressure
In Doha, the SNC -- once seen as the leading representative of the opposition but now seen in Washington as dominated by out-of-touch exiles -- came under increasing pressure to accept a unity plan.
"We have started an open dialogue with our brothers and looked at their initiative," the SNC's new leader George Sabra said. "But we have our own point of view and our own ideas that we plan to put forward."
The SNC had already twice asked for a postponement of the talks on plans for a broad-based government-in-waiting.
Its counter-proposal envisages the formation of a provisional government pending a general congress of the opposition, according to a document seen by AFP.
The existing plan, inspired by Riad Seif who is reportedly seen by Washington as a potential new opposition chief, envisages the formation of a transitional government, a military council to oversee rebel groups and a judiciary to operate in rebel-held areas.
