Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi urged the two sides in Syria’s conflict to declare unilateral truces for this week’s Muslim holidays after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as a deadly bomb rocked Damascus.
The bomb exploded outside a police station in a Christian quarter of the Old City, killing seven people and wounding many others, officials and state media said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a toll of 10 dead and 15 wounded as a car bomb blew up outside the station in Bab Tuma, where many in the minority community fear Islamists in the anti-Assad revolt.
The bombing came as UN-Arab League envoy Brahimi, after holding talks with al-Assad, called for “unilateral” ceasefires by the regime and the rebels for the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Friday.
“I appeal to everyone to take a unilateral decision to cease hostilities on the occasion of Eid al-Adha and that this truce be respected from today or tomorrow,” Brahimi told reporters.
On Saturday, Brahimi also pressed his demand for a truce in the 19-month bloodshed with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and opposition leaders tolerated by the regime.
The foreign ministry said Muallem discussed with Brahimi “a halt to the violence ... in order to prepare for a global Syrian dialogue, free of any foreign intervention.”
“Such a dialogue is the only way to emerge from the crisis,” it said.
Muallem also complained to Brahimi about regional countries that Syria accuses of hosting, arming and training rebels, saying their actions were undermining the envoy’s mission.
Syria has repeatedly blamed its neighbor Turkey, as well as energy-rich Saudi Arabia and Qatar, for supporting the armed insurgency.
Hassan Abdel Azim of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, a tolerated opposition group not involved in the armed revolt, voiced support for the proposed truce.
Such a ceasefire could pave the way for a political process if it was broadened to include the release of prisoners held by the regime and the supply of medical aid to beleaguered citizens, he said.
Brahimi has visited several countries with influence in the Syrian conflict over the past week, including Lebanon and Iran, while warning that the violence could spread and set the entire region ablaze.
These fears were compounded when a massive car bomb exploded on Friday in Beirut, killing at least eight people including a senior police intelligence chief linked to the anti-Damascus camp in Lebanon, General Wissam al-Hassan.
Lebanon, which was under Syrian military and political domination for 30 years until 2005, has been divided over the conflict in Syria and the scene of violence between supporters and opponents of the Damascus regime.
On the ground, clashes were reported yesterday in several parts of Syria, including Damascus province and the northern city of Aleppo, a key battleground for the past three months.
Clashes and shelling were also reported in the town of Harasta, north of the capital, the Observatory said, adding that regime forces bombed orchards in the nearby towns of Douma and Zamalka.
Bodies of a woman and five children were removed from under the rubble in the town of Saqba in Damascus Province, while fierce fighting was reported in the capital’s Assali district.
The Britain-based Observatory said 130 people died in violence across the country on Saturday, adding to its estimated toll of more than 34,000 killed since March last year.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS