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Dozens Killed in Suicide Bombing in Syria Dozens Killed in Suicide Bombing in Syria
(about 7 hours later)
BEIRUT — A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens in Syria’s central city of Hama on Sunday, state news media reported. BEIRUT — A suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with propane tanks at a crowded military checkpoint in central Syria on Sunday, killing more than 30 people, most of them civilians, in the second such attack by fighters linked to Al Qaeda in two days.
The bomber blew himself up inside the vehicle on a busy road on the outskirts of the city, according to SANA, the official Syrian news agency. The attack, which was reported both by the state-run news media and antigovernment activists, shook the city of Hama, ignited dozens of cars and sent up a column of smoke visible for miles around. One activist said the secondary explosions of gas tanks bursting continued long after the initial blast.
The news agency blamed the latest attack on “terrorists,” the term it uses to describe rebel forces trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Activists said the Nusra Front, one of the two Al Qaeda affiliates fighting alongside the rebels who seek to topple President Bashar al-Assad, was responsible for the attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict from Britain through a network of contacts in Syria, said the attack had targeted an army checkpoint. The bombing followed a similar attack east of Damascus the day before that killed 16 soldiers, suggesting an increasing reliance on suicide attacks to try to break government strongholds that the rebels are unable to take by conventional means.
Pictures on Syria TV showed firefighters trying to put out huge fires and black clouds of smoke rising from charred trucks and cars. But the high civilian toll on Sunday worried antigovernment activists, who said it could lead to tensions between rebels and their extremists allies.
The attack was the second in as many days. The Syrian Observatory, which supports the opposition, said that on Saturday, at least 16 soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber with the Nusra Front opposition group attacked a government checkpoint between the suburbs of Jaramana and Al Mleiha. After the attack, the government launched airstrikes and rebels peppered a government-controlled area with mortar rounds. The rise of extremist groups, which many rebels accept as battlefield companions even while disagreeing with their ideology, is one of the major challenges to international efforts to push for a negotiated end to the civil war. More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria in two and a half years of conflict.
The use of a suicide bomber to open a rebel offensive also shows the increasing sway of extremist groups in areas close to the capital. While two affiliates of Al Qaeda are active in Syria — the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — they are most prominent in the country’s north and east, where they can easily transport arms and foreign fighters across the Turkish and Iraqi borders. For months, the United States, Russia, the United Nations and other major powers have been pushing for peace talks to be held in Geneva between the government and the opposition. But dates for the talks have been delayed repeatedly.
Recently, their presence has increased in central and southern Syria, although more mainstream rebel groups still outnumber them. On Sunday, the secretary general of the Arab League, Nabil al-Araby, suggested to reporters in Cairo that a conference would be held in Geneva on Nov. 23.
The violence continued even as Nabil Elaraby, Arab League secretary general, said on Sunday that peace talks aimed at ending the civil war in Syria were scheduled for Nov. 23. But the international envoy for Syria said no date had yet been set for the long-delayed conference. But the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy for the Syria conflict, Lakhdar Brahimi, said at the same news conference that dates had yet to be set.
International efforts to end the conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people have stuttered. But a deal last month for Syria to get rid of its chemical weapons arsenal rekindled efforts to convene the conference. Mr. Brahimi said he would soon travel to Qatar and Turkey, which support the rebellion, and Iran, which backs Mr. Assad, as well as meet with American, Russian and other international officials before official dates could be set.
“I discussed the Syria file with Lakhdar Brahimi, and it was decided that the Geneva meeting would take place on Nov. 23 and arrangements are being made to prepare for this conference,” Mr. Elaraby told reporters in Cairo after a meeting with Mr. Brahimi, the international envoy for Syria. So far, each side has insisted on conditions that the other side rejects. The government has said it will not negotiate with “terrorists,” while dismissing almost all who oppose it as such.
“Of course, there are many arrangements and many obstacles and difficulties that have to be overcome,” he added. For its part, the opposition has demanded that the talks remove Mr. Assad from power. The government’s opponents are also hampered by internal divisions and by a widening gap between the exile political leadership, known as the Syrian National Coalition, and the hundreds of rebel groups fighting inside Syria, many of which have rejected the coalition.
At the same news conference, Mr. Brahimi said, “The date has not been officially set.” Driving the wedge deeper between the two is the Al Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, which is shunned by the coalition but accepted by many rebels as a valuable ally against Mr. Assad’s forces.
A senior Syrian official said last week that the conference was scheduled for Nov. 23-24, but the co-organizers Russia and the United States also said no date had been set. Sunday’s attack, carried out by a Nusra bomber, struck a military checkpoint on the edge of the city of Hama, next to a mechanization office belonging to the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture.
Mr. Brahimi said he would travel to Qatar, Turkey, Iran and Syria, as well as Geneva, to meet American, Russian and Security Council member officials, after which a final date would be announced. A local activist, Zakariya Attiya, said via Skype that the military had turned the office into a base and ran a checkpoint on the road that searched all cars entering and leaving the city.
“That place was well known by all as the base from which they launched their operations in the area,” Mr. Attiya said. “They detain and torture people there.”
Mr. Attiya said that the Nusra Front had carried out the attack because the rebels, who have taken over towns in the surrounding countryside, lack the military might to challenge the government’s grip on the city itself. While other rebels in the area do not use suicide bombers, they do not complain if Nusra does, as long as they target the government.
But the high civilian toll disturbed many in the opposition.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 43 people were killed, at least 32 of them civilians. The group supports the opposition and tracks the conflict from Britain through a network of contacts on the ground.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported the death toll as 37, but did not say that any soldiers were killed.