 |
| SANA/Reuters |
Via www.reuters.com
By Alistair Lyon
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Crowds waving Syrian flags and pictures ofPresident Bashar al-Assad gathered on 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, occurred before an Arab League committee meets in Cairo on 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 added.
Security forces trying to crush anti-Assad protests around Syria killed four civilians in Homs on Saturday, and three people died in Harasta from wounds inflicted on Friday, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
It also said security forces had killed 20 civilians and three army defectors on 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.
ARAB MONITORS TO STAY?
