28/09/2013 10:51
Car bomb kills 30 in town north of Syrian capital
A car bomb exploded near a mosque north of the Syrian capital as worshippers emerged from Friday prayers, killing at least 30 people, causing part of the building's roof to collapse and littering the street with smoldering debris, activists said, according to The Associated Press.
In Damascus, the United Nations said its team of weapons experts currently in Syria will investigate seven sites of alleged chemical attacks in the country, four more than previously known. The announcement came a day after the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council agreed on a resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons.
Friday's blast, which struck outside the al-Sahel mosque in the town of Rankous, also wounded dozens of people, most of them civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It put the death toll at at least 30, and said was not clear whether the mosque was the intended target.
Mohammed Saeed, an activist in the eastern Damascus suburb of Douma, and the Observatory's director Rami Abdul-Rahman both said the town is held neither by the rebels nor by the regime in Syria's civil war. Abdul-Rahman said residents have an agreement with the rebels not to bring weapons into Rankous in order to avoid government shelling.
Saeed, who is in contact with activists in Rankous, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Damascus, said residents held funerals for some of those killed in the bombing in line with Islamic tradition that calls for prompt burial. As people marched in one funeral, several rockets fired by government troops fell nearby, wounding some of the mourners, he said.