BEIRUT (AP) — Two suicide bombers blew up cars rigged with explosives near a military compound and a hotel in a city in northwestern Syria on Monday, killing at least nine people and wounding nearly 100, state media said.
The powerful blasts, which tore two craters into the ground and ripped the facade off a multistory building, marked the latest setback for troubled United Nations efforts to end Syria’s 13-month-old crisis.
An April 12 cease-fire agreement has helped reduce violence, but fighting persists, and U.N. officials have singled out the Syrian regime as the main aggressor. An advance team of 16 U.N. observers is on the ground to try to salvage the truce, which is part of a broader plan by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria, to launch talks between President Bashar Assad and those trying to topple him.
Monday’s bombs went off in the city of Idlib, an opposition stronghold that government troops recaptured in a military offensive earlier this year.
The state-run news agency, SANA, said security forces and civilians were among those killed, while state TV said that many of the nearly 100 wounded were civilians. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist network, put the death toll at more than 20 people.
Syria’s pro-government al-Ekhbariya TV aired footage of the aftermath from the blasts, showing torn flesh, smashed cars, twisted debris and pavement stained with blood. The force of the explosions shattered windows in the area and sent debris flying for hundreds of yards. Pro-government websites said five buildings were damaged.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. State media blamed “armed terrorists,” a term it uses for rebels trying to topple the government. Activists claimed the regime was behind the bombings to discredit the opposition.
The bombers detonated their explosives near a military compound and near the city’s Carlton Hotel, SANA said.
A local activist, who only gave his first name, Ibrahim, for fear of repercussions, said the two sites are several hundred yards apart and that the explosions went off within five minutes of each other after daybreak Monday.
Two members of the U.N. observer team toured the site of the bombings, SANA said. Ibrahim said the observers have been staying at the Carlton, and a pro-government website reported that the hotel sustained some damage.
Monday’s bombings were the latest in a series of suicide bombings to hit Syria.
An al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist group called the Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant claimed responsibility Monday for a suicide bombing in downtown Damascus that killed at least 10 people on Friday. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of Al-Nusra’s statement, which was posted on a militant website.
Earlier Monday, gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at the central bank, and a police patrol in the capital of Damascus, wounding four officers and causing light damage to the bank, SANA said.
Near the capital, amateur video posted Monday showed dozens of uniformed troops in helmets and body armor marching through a street in the suburb of Douma. A local activist, Mohammed Saeed, said the troops carried out arrest raids for a second day Monday.
In another suburb, Zamalka, activists said security forces tried to break a commercial strike by damaging shops that had been closed in solidarity with the protest. An amateur video showed rows of shuttered stores. Another showed dozens of men marching in Zamalka and chanting, “Strike, strike.”
As part of the cease-fire agreement, Syria’s military was to have pulled tanks and troops off the streets, but it instead has continued to raid and attack opposition strongholds.
In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that “there is a limit to the patience of the international community” with the regime’s continued truce violations.
However, Western powers have limited options because Russia and China, Syria’s allies, have shielded Mr. Assad from U.N. Security Council action. Mr. Hague said that more truce monitors must be sent to Syria to improve the situation and that Britain is increasing its nonlethal support for the opposition.
Currently, 16 observers are on the ground. By mid-May, the team is to grow to 100, but U.N. officials have not said by when a full 300-member contingent is to be deployed.
Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this article.
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