At least 13 people, including 10 policemen, were killed when a car bomb exploded north of the Syrian capital Damascus, activists said today.
The UK-based Observatory for Human Rights said the blast struck overnight near the police headquarters in Deir Atiyeh. The Observatory said a child was among the three civilians killed.
Syria’s state news agency confirmed the attack. It said a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car in a residential area of the town, causing an unknown number of casualties.
The agency said “terrorists” were behind the attack — a government term for rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Government troops launched fresh attacks today on rebels on the edge of Damascus, firing tank shells and artillery as they sought to retake districts that have been in opposition hands for months.
Assad’s regime has been gaining ground in the civil war, which has lasted more than two years and claimed at least 90,000 lives. Britain and America have sought to put pressure on Assad and the rebels to join peace talks in Geneva. But diplomatic sources said the likelihood of this happening next month was now ebbing away.
David Cameron has raised the prospect of sending weapons to the rebels but would struggle to win a vote in the Commons for such a policy.
Military chiefs are also warning that providing small arms or ground-to-air missiles would be unlikely to make a significant impact in the civil war.
Mr Cameron’s wife Samantha was moved by a recent visit with Save the Children to a refugee camp across the border in Lebanon. She made it clear that she wished more could be done to help the hundreds of thousands of women and children who have been forced to abandon their homes.
But Downing Street played down suggestions that she was pushing the PM for Britain to intervene militarily.
“The idea that she is trying to force us to arm the Syrian rebels is deeply over the top,” said a senior source.
