A powerful car bomb exploded in Damascus on Friday, inflicting many casualties and buffeting a shaky temporary truce in the Syrian conflict on the occasion of a Muslim religious holiday.

State television said the "terrorist car bomb" had killed five people and wounded 32, according to "preliminary figures."

Opposition activists said the bomb had gone off near a makeshift children's playground built for the Eid al-Adha holiday in the southern Daf al-Shok district of the capital.

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Fighting erupted around Syria earlier as both sides violated the Eid al-Adha cease-fire arranged by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, but violence was far less intense than usual.

The Syrian military said it had responded to attacks by insurgents on army positions, in line with its announcement  Thursday that would cease military activity during the four-day holiday but would react to rebel actions.

Brahimi's cease-fire appeal had won widespread international support, including from Russia, China and Iran, President Bashar al-Assad's main foreign allies.

Syrian military agrees to Eid cease-fire; residents report shelling

The U.N.-Arab League envoy had hoped to build on the truce to calm a 19-month-old conflict that has killed an estimated 32,000 people and worsened instability in the Middle East.

Violence appeared to wane in some areas, but truce breaches by both sides swiftly marred Syrians' hopes for a peaceful celebration of Eid al-Adha, the climax of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

"We are not celebrating Eid here," said a woman in a besieged Syrian town near the Turkish border, speaking above the noise of incessant gunfire and shelling. "No one is in the mood to celebrate. Everyone is just glad they are alive."

Her husband, a portly, bearded man in his 50s, said they and their five children had just returned to the town after nine days camped out on a farm with other families to escape clashes.

"We have no gifts for our children. We can't even make phone calls to our families," he said, a young daughter on his lap.

'Painful disaster'
The Syrian conflict has aggravated divisions in the Islamic world, with Shiite Iran supporting Assad and U.S.-allied Sunni nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar backing his foes.

The imam of Mecca's Grand Mosque called on Arabs and Muslims to take "practical and urgent" steps to stop bloodshed in Syria.

Syrian opposition skeptical of 'feeble' ceasefire plan

"The world should bear responsibility for this prolonged and painful disaster (in Syria) and the responsibility is greater for the Arabs and Muslims who should call on each other to support the oppressed against the oppressor," Sheikh Saleh Mohammed al-Taleb told worshipers during Eid prayers.

For some in Syria, there was no respite from war, but by dusk the death toll was still significantly lower than in recent days, when often between 150 to 200 people have been killed, according to reports that cannot be independently verified.

Assad himself, who has vowed to defeat what he says are Islamist fighters backed by Syria's enemies abroad, was shown on state television attending Eid prayers at a Damascus mosque.

The prime minister, information minister and foreign minister, as well as the mufti, Syria's top Muslim official, were filmed praying alongside the 47-year-old president.

Assad, smiling and apparently relaxed, shook hands and exchanged Eid greetings with other worshipers afterward.

Military stalemate
Protests against Assad burst out in March last year, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere, but repression by security forces led to an armed insurgency, plunging Syria into a civil war that neither side has proved able to win or seems willing to end.

A commander from the rebel Free Syrian Army had said his fighters would honor the cease-fire but demanded Assad meet opposition demands for the release of thousands of detainees.

Some Islamist militants, including the Nusra Front, rejected the truce. Many groups were skeptical that it would hold.

"We do not care about this truce. We are cautious. If the tanks are still there and the checkpoints are still there then what is the truce?" asked Abu Moaz, spokesman for Ansar al-Islam, a group whose units fight in and around Damascus.

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Updated 1:07 p.m. ET: As Syrian forces shelled the battered city of Homs through Saturday morning, the United Nations Security Council authorized the deployment of 30 unarmed observers to the country.

The military observers have been tasked with monitoring a tenuous cease-fire that began three days ago. Syrian activists said the cease-fire, called for by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, was ignored by the Syrian military.

The first group of observers was on stand-by, ready to fly to Syria when the council gave the green light, according to Reuters. 

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Saturday’s resolution states that if Syria does not cooperate, the council would “assess the implementation of this resolution and to consider further steps as appropriate,” Reuters reported. 

The council reached the resolution after a 24-hour debate with Russia, according to The New York Times. It is the first resolution the 15-nation council, including China and Russia, has approved since uprisings began in Syria more than a year ago. Moscow and Beijing have twice vetoed similar council resolutions reprimanding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia's ambassador to the UN made it clear that Russia would support only limited UN action, the Guardian of London reported.

On Friday, Syrian forces used live fire, tear gas and clubs to beat back thousands of protesters who took to the streets across the country in often jubilant displays of defiance, The Associated Press reported. It was the first use of force since the cease-fire began.  

The BBC reported 750 rallies, stretching from the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital, to the central province of Hama, Idib in the north and southern province of Daraa, where the uprisings began in March 2011. Six people were killed.

Syrians take to streets in test of truce

"Come on, Bashar, leave!" the crowd shouted in Daraa, linking arms and stomping their feet to the beat of a drum in a traditional Arab folk dance, The AP reported, citing a video posted online by activists.

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"We tried our best to reach Assi Square in order to show the world the truth about the regime -- they are lying and will not allow us to have big, peaceful demonstrations," Mousab Hamadee, an activist in that city, told the BBC. "As we approached Assi Square, they started opening fire on us. Two of my colleagues were martyred." 

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.

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BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Syrian tanks shelled the central city of Hama and parts of Homs came under mortar fire on Tuesday, opposition activists said, on the day President Bashar Assad had agreed to halt the use of heavy weapons and withdraw forces from urban areas.

Tanks were still present in both cities, activists said.

A collapse of the truce deal by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan could move Syria closer to an all-out civil war. A 13-month uprising has turned increasingly violent in response to a brutal regime crackdown.

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"Shelling woke me this morning at 8:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. ET) and I can now hear one shell every 10 minutes or so," said Waleed Fares, describing what he said was mortar fire striking neighborhoods in the center and east of Homs, the hub of a 13-month-old uprising.

Syria truce prospects fade; US 'outraged' by new attacks

In Hama, Manhal Abu Bakr reported hearing shelling overnight and said tanks were still patrolling the city.

"At 2 a.m. (8 p.m. Monday) we heard two shells fall and the sound of tanks moving around the streets," he said.

"There is no gunfire now. They shell us at night so that it is hard to film," he said over Skype. Internet video, which Abu Bakr said was filmed in Hama overnight, showed nighttime explosions in a built-up district.

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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most cities were relatively calm on Tuesday after heavy bloodshed in recent days, but reported no clear sign of troop withdrawals.

Syrian troops' message: 'We are present'
There were no immediate reports of action by fighters of the rebel Free Syrian Army, whose commanders have said they will order a cease-fire only if they are satisfied that Assad's forces have indeed pulled back and stopped offensives.

The Observatory said there was an overnight bombardment in the town of Mara in Syria's northern province of Aleppo.

In Douma, a suburb of the capital Damascus, an activist said tanks were still on the fringes of town on Tuesday morning.

Residents of the southern city of Deraa, where the popular revolt against Assad erupted in March 2011, reported sporadic gunfire.

"Security is everywhere and you feel they have redeployed in key locations," said Nayef Hassan, an engineer.

Security forces and the army remained stationed in Deraa, said an activist who called himself Abu Firas, and security checkpoints still separated districts of the old city.

"The troops at checkpoints are appearing in strength to say 'we are present'," he said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 10:25 a.m. ET: President Bashar al-Assad told U.N./Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday that no political solution was possible in Syria while "terrorist" groups were destabilizing the country.

"Syria is ready to make a success of any honest effort to find a solution for the events it is witnessing," state news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling his guest.

"No political dialogue or political activity can succeed while there are armed terrorist groups operating and spreading chaos and instability," the Syrian leader said after about two hours of talks with the former U.N. secretary-general.

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There was no immediate comment from Annan after the meeting, aimed at halting bloodshed that has cost thousands of lives since a popular uprising erupted a year ago.

While they discussed the crisis, Syrian troops were assaulting the northwestern city of Idlib, a rebel bastion.

"Regime forces have just stormed into Idlib with tanks and heavy shelling is now taking place," said an activist contacted by telephone, the sound of explosions punctuating the call.

Sixteen rebel fighters, seven soldiers and four civilians were killed in the Idlib fighting, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said 15 other people, including three soldiers, had been killed in violence elsewhere.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met Annan in Cairo earlier in the day, told the Arab League his country was "not protecting any regime", but did not believe the Syrian crisis could be blamed on one side alone.

He called for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid access, but Qatar and Saudi Arabia sharply criticized Moscow's stance.

'Truce not enough'
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who has led calls for Assad to be isolated and for Syrian rebels to be armed, said a ceasefire was not enough. Syrian leaders must be held to account and political prisoners freed, he declared.

"We must send a message to the Syrian regime that the world's patience and our patience has run out, as has the time for silence about its practices," Sheikh Hamad said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said shortcomings in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China have twice vetoed resolutions on Syria, had allowed the killing to go on.

Their position, he said, "gave the Syrian regime a license to extend its brutal practices against the Syrian people".

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are both ruled by autocrats and espouse a strict version of Sunni Islam, are improbable champions of democracy in Syria. Riyadh has an interest in seeing Assad fall because this could weaken its Shi'ite regional rival Iran, which has been allied with Syria since 1980.

International rifts have paralyzed action on Syria, with Russia and China opposing Western and Arab calls for Assad, who inherited power from his father nearly 12 years ago, to quit.

Lavrov told Arab ministers a new U.N. Security Council resolution had a chance of being approved if it was not driven by a desire to let armed rebels take control of Syria's streets.

Syria opposition chief rejects UN peace talks

The United States has drafted a fresh resolution, but the State Department said on Friday it was not optimistic that its text would be accepted by the Council.

France says it will oppose any measure that holds the Syrian government and its foes equally responsible for the bloodshed.

Despite their differences, Lavrov and Arab ministers said they had agreed on the need for an end to violence in Syria.

They also called for unbiased monitoring of events there, opposition to foreign intervention, delivery of humanitarian aid and support for Annan's peace efforts.

Dissidents skeptical
Annan also planned to meet Syrian dissidents before leaving Damascus on Sunday. He has called for a political solution, but the opposition says the time for dialogue is long gone.

"We support any initiative that aims to stop the killings, but we reject it if it is going to give Bashar more time to break the revolution and keep him in power," Melham al-Droubi, a Saudi-based member of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the exiled Syrian National Council, told Reuters by telephone.

Annan's trip to Damascus followed a violent day in which activists said Assad's forces killed at least 72 people as they bombarded parts of the rebellious city of Homs and sought to deter demonstrators and crush insurgents elsewhere.

Decisive victory has eluded both sides in an increasingly deadly struggle that began as a mainly peaceful protest movement a year ago and now appears to be sliding into civil war.

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The United Nations estimates that Syrian security forces have killed well over 7,500 people. Syria said in December that "terrorists" had killed more than 2,000 soldiers and police.

Russia, one of Syria's few foreign friends and its main arms supplier, could play a pivotal role in any negotiated solution.

Chinese and Russian reluctance to approve any U.N. resolution on Syria stems partly from their fear that it could be used to justify a Libya-style military intervention, although Western powers deny any intention to go to war again in Syria.

A Russian diplomat said this week Assad was battling al Qaeda-backed militants, including 15,000 foreign fighters who would seize cities if Syrian troops withdrew.

The Syrian opposition denies any al Qaeda role in the uprising, but Islamists are among rebels who have taken up arms against Assad under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

Qatar's Sheikh Hamad chided Russia for accepting the Syrian government's portrayal of insurgents as armed gangs.

"There are no armed gangs, the systematic killing came from the Syrian government side for many months. After that the people were forced to defend themselves so the regime labeled them armed gangs," he told the Arab League meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Lavrov in New York on Monday when the Security Council holds a special meeting on Arab revolts, with Syria likely to be in focus.

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