Dubai A roadside bomb blast, apparently targeting a convoy of UN observers, including its head Major General Robert Mood, hit troops escorting them, a day after UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan warned that his peace plan could be the last chance to avoid civil war.
The explosive device, planted underground, wounded six Syrian soldiers escorting the convoy as it entered the city of Daraa, cradle of a 14-month uprising against President Bashar Al Assad's regime.
Mood, the head of the 70-strong UN mission, was in the four-vehicle convoy but escaped unharmed along with 11 other observers and his spokesman, Neeraj Singh, said an AFP photographer travelling with them.
Mood said the attack was "a graphic experience that the Syrian people live with every day" but would not stop the mission continuing. "It is imperative that violence in all its forms must stop. We remain focused on our task."
The opposition Syrian National Council accused the regime of being behind the blast, the latest breach of a month-old ceasefire agreement brokered by Annan.
"We believe the regime is using these tactics to try to push the observers out amid popular demands to increase their numbers," SNC executive committee member Samir Nashar said.
"[Anti-regime] demonstrators want the observers, because they provide a safety guarantee. In their presence, people can express themselves through peaceful protests."
"We are used to the regime's tactics of claims that there is terrorism and fundamentalism in Syria, which is not the case."
France strongly condemned the bombing.
"We hold the Damascus regime responsible for the observers' security," said foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.
Meanwhile, seven militiamen loyal to Al Assad have been killed in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack in the Damascus suburb of Irbin, according to an activist. It is unclear who carried out the attacks in Daraa and Irbin. They come after the head of the Free Syrian Army, Riad Al Assad, warned that rebel groups would resume hostilities against the regular army.
Annan has urged both sides in the conflict in Syria to "give peace a chance" after delivering a bleak assessment on the progress of his UN-backed initiative.
Speaking to reporters after briefing the Security Council, he said: "I believe that the UN supervision mission is possibly the only remaining chance to stabilise the country.
"There is a profound concern that the country could otherwise descend into full civil war and the implications of that are quite frightening. We cannot allow that to happen."
Border firing: Old woman shot dead
Syrian security forces have killed an elderly Lebanese woman and wounded her daughter in a cross-border shooting, a Lebanese official said yesterday.
The woman, in her 70s, was "shot dead yesterday by Syrian regime forces from the other side of the border with Syria while she was visiting her family near a mosque", the official said.
"Syrian regime forces frequently shoot into our side of the border... sometimes they shoot at anything that moves, arbitrarily," he said.
"In recent days, regime troops have crossed the border and temporarily occupied uninhabited farmhouses."
— AFP
