E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Philippe Desmazes / AFP - Getty Images
Syrian rescue workers evacuate a woman and her two children from a building targeted by a government forces in the northern Syrian town of Al-Bab on Sunday.
Updated at 10:30 a.m. ET: An Islamist suicide car bomber killed at least 50 Syrian security men on Monday, an opposition group said, in one of the bloodiest single attacks on President Bashar Assad's forces. It came a day after Syrian government forces killed 179 people, said the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an activist monitoring group.
Syrian state media reported that a suicide bomber had targeted a rural development center in Sahl al-Ghab in Hama province, but put the death toll at two.
"A fighter from the Nusra Front blew himself up ... At least 50 were killed," said Rami Abdelrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "He drove his car to the center and then blew himself up. A series of explosions followed."
PhotoBlog: A close-up view of the battle for Aleppo
Abdelrahman, whose monitoring group is based in Britain, said the rural development center was used by Syrian security forces as one of their biggest bases in the area. The Nusra Front is an Islamist group made up of militant Salafis, or ultra-orthodox Muslims. It has claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings in the past.
An opposition group and an activist organization say that 269 people have died in a rash of violence since Sunday. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Civilians killed
Most of the deaths over the weekend were civilians killed in shelling of Damascus suburbs and included 14 women and 20 children, the human rights group said. The remainder were rebels killed in battles in the capital and the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.
Ali Abu Salah / Shaam News Network via Reuters
Rescue workers free a boy from the rubble of a damaged building after an attack by a Syrian Air Force fighter jet on Sunday. EDITOR'S NOTE: Image supplied by the opposition Shaam News Network.
The violence continued on Monday, according to opposition activists, who reported that at least eight people were killed and dozens wounded in an army bombardment on rebel strongholds in southern Damascus. Warplanes fired rockets while tanks and artillery pounded five working-class Sunni neighborhoods, the activists said. The areas have been at the forefront of the 19-month-old revolt against Assad.
The Syrian government restricts journalists' access in Syria, making it difficult to verify reports from the ground.
Opposition campaigners said the Syrian army shelled rebel positions inside a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 20 people. Another 20 rebel fighters were reported killed in an airstrike in the northwest province of Idlib on Monday, according to the Observatory.
Analysis: US loses patience with Syria opposition group
Ammunition shortage
In Idlib, opposition sources said Islamist insurgents were forced to halt an offensive to take a big air base because of a shortage of ammunition, a problem that has dogged their campaign to cement a hold on the north by eliminating Assad's devastating edge in firepower.
The insurgents had launched the attack on the Taftanaz military airport at dawn on Saturday, using rocket launchers and at least three tanks captured from the military.
The arms shortage was scheduled to be discussed as fractured opposition groups seeking to topple Assad met in Qatar on Sunday for four days of unity talks. The talks marked the first concerted attempt to meld feuding, disparate groups based abroad and coordinate strategy with rebels fighting in Syria.
Syria warplanes pound rebel strongholds after cease-fire fails to stop fighting
Divisions between Islamists and secularists as well as between those inside Syria and opposition figures based abroad have foiled prior attempts to forge a united opposition and deterred Western powers from intervening militarily.
Government forces launched airstrikes around Damascus Saturday, flattening buildings. NBC's Lester Holt reports.
The conflict began with peaceful protest rallies that morphed into armed revolt when Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since 1971, tried to stamp them out with military might. About 32,000 people have been killed, wide swathes of the major Arab state have been wrecked and the civil war threatens to widen into a regional sectarian conflagration.
Analysts were skeptical the talks would bring immediate results.
They aim to broaden the Syrian National Council (SNC), the largest of the overseas-based opposition groups, from some 300 members to 400, and to pave the way for talks on Thursday to include other anti-Assad factions in the coalition.
"The main aim is to expand the council to include more of the social and political components. There will be new forces in the SNC," Abdulbaset Sieda, current leader of the Syrian National Council, told reporters in Doha ahead of the meeting.
The meetings would also elect a new executive committee and leader for the SNC, he said.
NBC News
People resisting the army of President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.
A Qatar-based security analyst, who asked not to be named, said the meetings would bring a small step forward, at most.
"The Syrian National Council is just too divided," he said.
In Cairo, the international mediator on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, called on Sunday for world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution based on a deal they reached in June to set up a transitional Syrian government.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the same news conference, dismissed the need for a resolution and said others were stoking violence by backing rebels. His comments highlighted the impasse over Syria's civil war.
Russia and China, both permanent council members, have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad's government for the violence. The other three permanent members are the United States, Britain and France.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Analysis: From Afghanistan to Venezuela, 2012 battle captivates
- Analysis: Despite bloodshed,White House candidates ignore Mexico
- Analysis: US loses patience with Syria opposition group
- Analysis: Suspicion of US rife as Romney, Obama batter China
- Meet Afghan female rapper, colonel who defy the odds
- Analysis: Israel, Iran name checks illustrate America's twin obsessions
- Chinese say one child is enough as Beijing weighs end of policy
- Analysis: Should next US president treat Russia as friend or foe?
- Expert: Tourists threaten Sistine Chapel's famous paintings
Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Leave a Comment:
Let's stay out of this civil war. "Killing you own people" is what you do in a civil war. Just look at our civil war where hundreds of thousands of "our own people" were slaughtered.
Islam will destroy itself from within. Look at Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and north Africa. The killing has just begun and will spread thoughout the middle east.
I think it will be another 1000 years at least before they unite. As for being a superpower, well the illiteracy rate would have to diminish significantly to start with, and in the next 1000 years, I'd believe oil wouldn't be a significant source of income. In the region they've been at war for thousands of years, over beliefs so dated, you have to be illiterate to buy into the concepts to begin with. If the Islamic Sisterhood stays as culturally backward as the Islamic Brotherhood, and doesn't start bitchin' the boys out to clean up their acts, the area's future looks to be a battleground to be covered up with another sand dune, and just as bleak culturally as geographically.
We have noticed in the history that religious madness have no limits.
Since the birth of Islam, the actions of followers of Islam have been worst and most violent.
You can't expect many changes from the past! Instead, it is becoming worse and worse!
"An Islamist suicide car bomber killed at least 50 Syrian security men on Monday"
No sane person will support these Sunni Islamic religious Nazis.
Most of these Syrian "rebels" are not rebels at all. They are nothing more than religious fanatics who want control for themselves. While some may have been living in Syria all along, this does not mean that they really are or ever have been part of mainstream Syrian society. These so-called "rebels" do not want to establish a free and open society in Syria, they simply want to take over and institute their particular brand of Islam and Sharia Law and the law of the land. They will persecute and/or execute anyone who does not go along with their views of how people should worship and live. As bad as people try and make Assad out to be, at least under Assad the people of Syria are free to live and worship as they choose. Assad may be an Alawite himself, but his government has been by an large a secular minded one. The same can not be said of any of the current "rebel" groups fighting to overthrow Assad. As for Turkey, they need to stay out of this fight and stop providing support to these "rebels". The Turkish government needs to stop allowing these "rebels" to base themselves and launch their attacks from Turkish soil. The same goes for the US and the other Arab states. They need to stop interfering in the internal affairs of Syria and let them resolve this civil war for themselves. These outside fighter that are streaming into Syria are religious fanatics. If Assad does fall it will by no mean bring an end to the fighting. The fighting will only turn from the "rebels" fighting against Assad the the different "rebel" groups fighting against each other for control. The fall of Assad will not only not make things any better, it will result in Syria falling into complete chaos with no functioning central government for a very long time to come as the different "rebel" groups fight it out for control city by city and town by town.
Look at the actions of mad Sunni Islamic religious haters and killers on just a video on their Mohammed.
They use any opportunity to hate and kill! If we sit: it is wrong. If we stand: it is a blunder!
No help to these Sunni Saudi & co haters and killers. We have no roles in Syria and Iran.
Look at what their mad House of Saud is doing in Saudi Arabia.
House of Saud, a strict Wahhabi, is not even tolerating Prophet Mohammad’s heritage places. House of Saud consists of a megalomaniac, despotic and bigoted ruler and highly corrupt, despotic, bigoted seventh century mindset 5000 princes and princesses.
In Mecca, the house of one of the wives of Mohammed was demolished and converted into public lavatories. Mohammed’s birth place may vanish with plans to have skyscrapers, mega shopping malls and a Grand mosque!
In Medina, ten years ago a mosque of grandson of Mohammed was dynamited and the religious police were celebrating on this. There are plans to pull down three seventh century mosques in future.
In 21st century, we will not be able to save these one-way traffic bigoted Sunni seventh century despotic rulers for long!
@JS in SD - To clump all of the rebels as religious fanatics in just plain ignorant. If you've been keeping up with whats been going on there then you would realize the majority of these rebels are every day citizens like you and me. While I agree there will be in-fighting for years to come but there is no certainty of that happening. I agree we need to stay out of it but wanting Turkey to stay out of it is odd. Assad has been shelling Turkey from across the border. I guess they should just turn a blind eye to Assad not only kills his own people but kills Turkeys people too?
The thing that bugs me the most is the killing of the innocents.
Yeah, like clumping them into the "they're everyday citizens just like you and me" isn't equally dillusional. This is a part of the world with a radically differnt culture and society from our own. I can assure you that if these people care enough about their "cause" to run around the streets with AK-47's and Machetes, then they probably are NOTHING like the Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, tolerance loving, 'peace-dude' variety that 90% of Americans fall into...
One can't believe that these Sunni Islamic religious Nazis are talking of children and women like they did before each Iraqi war!
Where are they hiding now?
Just kick out all Muslims, who are supporting these Sunni Syrian barbaric Islamic religious Nazis.
We have no roles in their Shiites vs Sunni battles.
Why don't the Sunni Trojan horses and liabilities on earth like Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Syrian National Council go to their Muslim nations and do their dirty battles.
What human rights do these seventh century Sunni Islamic religious Nazis know?
Let them start human rights, rights for children and women, democracy and so on from their House of Saud led by the megalomaniac, despotic and bigoted ruler and highly corrupt, despotic, bigoted seventh century mindset 5000 princes and princesses.
"The arms shortage was scheduled to be discussed as fractured opposition groups seeking to topple Assad met in Qatar on Sunday for four days of unity talks"
Sunni Saudi, Qatari and other Sunni ME rulers and their proxies Salaffi, al Qaida and other Sunni Islamic killers are backing Sunni Syrian rebels against Assad.
Assad is compartively a better leader for Christians and other minority sects and tribes than most of the Sunni rulers.
Sunni Saudis and co are most ungrateful and biggest backstabbers history has seen ever.
Against Gaddafi, Libyan rebels were in similar situation and they got massive assistance from the US, British, French and others.
At the first opportunity, the Sunni Saudi proxies like Salaffi/al Qaida (labels vary depending upon places) killed the US ambassador and three others in a miserable manner in Benghazi!
With Iraqi wars, the US and allies saved Sunni Saudi, Kuwaiti, UAE, Qatari and other Sunni seventh century barbaric and beastly bigoted rulers. In turn, they became richer by manipulating oil prices to high levels of $145.
We got in return: high oil prices; wrecked economies due to oil price manipulations; dead and injured soldiers and their Sunni Salaffi and Wahhabi mosques, hate preaching and killer training centers, all over our places.
WE HAVE NO ROLES IN SYRIA AND IRAN.
Remove sanctions on Iranian oil to crash oil prices and weaken our enemies No. 1: Sunni Saudis and co rulers and their hate preaching and killer gangs.
Iran can get nukes from Pakis.
For a change, we should not do their dirty jobs.
Let the Shiites and Sunnis battle to their heart's content on whose Allah is greater.
Don't worry about Russia and China. If they get into the mess, they will also get badly crippled!
Comment # 4 deleted
Syria? Fighting? Fine! Let them blow the whole place up. I could not care less. Just stay the hell out of it, and let them have their way with each other. When all the smoke finally clears, wave hello at them, and walk away. They made their own mess, and they can fix it themselves.
I'm amazed that everything I've read on these posts so far is all true. Finally some intelligent people to converse to rather than the bigots who turn everything into politics ugh. I just have one problem with the mention of Iran. Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons and we should stop before they attack Israel. Israel may not be the best of allies in fact I actually despise some of the stuff thier lobbyists do and even their government. I feel like the whole of hebrew is being oppressed by a zionist regime that is no better than Iran's twisted regime. Unfortunately the U.S. will never back down from licking Israel's shoes but that is exactly the point. I would love to treat the Saudis and Sunnis the way they deserve but if we alienate all Islam we will have to defend Israel from every single middle eastern nation and we just can't do that. Iran should stop threatening Israel and motion for peace. In exchange Israel should give up their settlements to the palistinians and Jerusalem becomes an independant state like the Vatican. The thing I don't like at all about the U.S. is how it strengthens the Sunnis and weakens the Shia. I actually believe that if Israel and Iran could get their act together Shia could be the true power and Sunnis will dwindle as we start exacting some much needed pay back to these back stabbing kings.
Screw these Islamic terrorists pretending to fight for democracy. They only want power to establish an Islamist state. We don't like the current Syrian regime only because they are aligned with Iran. Only a fool would help the Sunnis to topple the current government.
That is totally inhumane, look at that poor woman carrying those 2 kids in that blown out house, just imagine yourself in a situation like that, having a home that you consider your temple and security and suddenly loose it like that and thanking that you didn't loose your life in the process. This Syrian Goverment has to Go NOW!
rocketero, some of my dear friends just happen to be syrians but not sunni or alawite they are christians. Two of them as far as I know went to the country to fight for the regime because their uncle who is now in Lebanon sent them news that their second family was executed for refusing to disavow assad and the regime. The children were beaten in the head with the butt of a rifle, their nieces were raped, and one's baby girl was thrown on the ground, while only 3 out their extended family in the rural area near Aleppo got away and rushed across the border to Lebanon with the help of some regime soldiers and their convoy moving to reinforce Ankara. Don't talk to me about the regime and inhumane treatment! These so called "rebels" are the same thing and just as brutal and inhumane and if you want to help them bring death and chaos to the Syrian people then why don't you go over there and fight for them and I hope a regime artillery shell hits you while your kicking people out of there houses too!
Ya, Obama and the U.N. are to blame for all that blood. It is on their hands.
If they had not given weapons and money to the Muslim thugs, this civil war would have ended before it started.
Obama has never explained why he gave weapons and money to the Muslims over the ruling party that our government recognized and did business with.
That is something he should have to answer for and HE is directly responsible for all the blood of this bomb.
The rebels want control to establish strict Sharia Law. We can not support this. Assad was tolerant of all religions. Yes, he's a murdering thug, but, the rebels are no different. Hillary and the rest of our politicians involved are trying to glean from the rebels some group that doesn't exist to back that might establish democracy. That just isn't going to happen. When are we going to get our heads around the fact that democracy will never trump their radical religion and there will never be peace in the middle-east until one group over-powers the other and simply rules as a strict dictatorship ? Democracy is something that must 'evolve.' These people are still 100 years from evolving. We going to stay another 100 years ?
Excuse me,
But the last time I checked, suicide bombings fell under the category of Terrorism !!! Why are we condoning this garbage ???
Quarant-
You read my mind. Why is Hillary and Obama thinking these rebels should be supported ?? Amazing.
This is incredibly depressing. It's a feedback loop. The rebels need weapons, supplies, and manpower. When they can't get those, they're forced to turn to the jihadis for help. The more they turn to the jihadis, the less legitimate their cause seems to the rest of the world, and the less likely anyone else is to send them supplies. And so they have to turn to the jihadis again, and so on...
If I were fighting to overthrow a brutal, murderous dictator in my homeland, I too would choose to accept the help of religious fanatics if the only other option was defeat.
So if the Syrian military deliberately targets civilians and bombs urban areas how come the rest of the muslim world tolerates it? But if an American drone accidentally causes collateral damage with a few unintended victims why is ONLY the U.S. considered evil?
You live by the sword you die buy the sword just keep on a killing fill up that syria grave yard the sooner the better if takes another two years so be it.==coyote
Muslims doing what they do best - killing each other.
Peaceful religion my ass
And the faster they kill each other, the better for everybody else!
It appears that both the leader long term of Syria,Mr.Assad and his Opposition have missed the clear point that whoever 'wins' must eventually lose,the Syrian people ,as their needs as a people become lost to a generation not capable,not able in meeting peoples basic need
this has to be the most stupid sh-t i have ever hear in my life. and nobody dose a dam thing.
The faster they kill each other off, the better.
There will be more peace in the world.
Joe,
I could not agree more. Muslim's killing Muslims is the way of the world. If you take away the opportunity for them to kill each other, they will then just have to kill you.