Syria buries victims of contested bombing (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Crowds waving Syrian flags and pictures of President Bashar al-Assad gathered Saturday to bury 26 people who the authorities said were killed by a suicide bomber at a busy Damascus crossroads.

The opposition Syrian National Council has accused the government of staging Friday's explosion to try to bolster its contention that it is fighting foreign-backed "terrorists," not a popular pro-democracy movement.

A cortege of ambulances, lights flashing, bore the flag-draped coffins of victims to a Damascus mosque after driving through streets lined with mourners, state television showed.

Crowds chanted "The people want Bashar al-Assad!" and "One, one, one, the Syrian people are one!."

The blast, which also wounded 63 people, came before an Arab League committee meets in Cairo Sunday to discuss the future of an Arab monitoring mission that has spent two weeks checking whether Syria is keeping its pledge to halt a 10-month crackdown on opponents of four decades of Assad family rule.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who heads the committee, told Al Jazeera TV the monitors should not stay to "waste time" since Syria was not implementing the deal.

He said the Syrian army had not left cities as required and the killing had not stopped since the observers began work on December 26. "With great regret, the news is not good," he said.

Security forces trying to crush anti-Assad protests around Syria killed four civilians in Homs Saturday, and three people died in Harasta from wounds inflicted Friday, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

It also said security forces had killed 20 civilians and three army defectors Friday.

Scores of people have been reported killed since the observers arrived, adding to a death toll that the United Nations says has already topped 5,000 since the uprising erupted in March, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere.

A Syrian army colonel from said in a statement broadcast by Al Jazeera he had defected in protest against the crackdown on protests. He was flanked in video footage by 13 men in uniform, though the station said up to 50 defected with him in Hama.

ARAB MONITORS TO STAY?

Despite the Qatari leader's criticism, Arab League sources said Arab foreign ministers were likely to reaffirm support for the monitors, resisting calls to end what Assad's foes say is a toothless mission that only buys time for him to repress them.

The head of the monitoring operations room at the League's headquarters in Cairo, Adnan al-Khudeir, said the observers were continuing their work and any decision to withdraw them would have to be taken by a full meeting of Arab foreign ministers.

Ten Jordanian monitors arrived in Damascus Saturday, bringing the total number to 153, Khudeir said.

Qatar is proposing to invite U.N. technicians and human rights experts to help Arab monitors assess whether Syria is implementing the League's plan, sources at the Arab League said. A source said the ministers meeting Sunday might request that U.N. staff helping the mission be Arabs.

League sources said the foreign ministers, who will consider an initial report by the monitors, would also discuss ways of allowing the mission to work more independently of Syrian authorities.

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, in a statement posted online, condemned the "terrorist explosion" in Damascus and voiced "great concern at the escalation of violence in Syria."

Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar had promised earlier to hit back with an "iron fist" for the blast, which he said killed 26 people, including 15 who could not be identified.

Arab states are wary of instability in Syria, which the Arab League has suspended for failing to implement its peace plan earlier. Syria is a major power-broker in the region, allied with Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah armed group.

Hezbollah, which fought Israel in a 2006 war, blamed the blast on "evil American forces and those under its control in our region to punish Syria for its firm support of resistance forces against the Zionist enemy (Israel) and the West."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that, as with previous attacks, Syria had blamed "just about everybody": the opposition, al Qaeda and the United States.

"At the present time we can't say one way or the other how this happened but what we can say is that, obviously, we condemn the attack," she said.

Syria's Addounia television said military ships from Russia, an ally of Assad which has resisted escalating Western pressure on Damascus, docked in the Mediterranean port of Tartus on Saturday.

A Russian official was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying a destroyer and a frigate would spend several days at Russia's naval maintenance and supply facility in the port.

(Editing by Louise Ireland and Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120107/wl_nm/us_syria

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