|
| This image made from citizen journalist video posted by the Shaam News Network, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows the aftermath of a car bomb attack on a market in the town of Darkoush in Idlib province, Monday, Oct. 14, 2013. Syrian activist groups say the bombing in a rebel-held northwestern town has killed and wounded dozens of people. Car bombs are becoming more common in Syria's civil war, now in its third year. The conflict has killed more than 100,000 people. |
BEIRUT (AP)
-- Gunmen in Syria released three Red Cross staffers and a Red Crescent
volunteer who had been kidnapped in rebel-held territory, the
international agency said Monday.
The fate of
three other Red Cross workers who were also seized Sunday in the
northwestern Idlib province remained unclear, the International
Committee of the Red Cross said.
Syrian
opposition activists said the seven aid workers were taken at a rebel
checkpoint outside the town of Saraqeb, manned by an al-Qaida-affiliate,
the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. There was no claim of
responsibility.
About two dozen miles away,
near Turkey, a car bomb went off in the market of the town of Darkoush
on Monday, while it was crowded with people shopping for the four-day
Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha holiday. The blast set cars on fire and
sent people running.
The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said 27 people were killed, while another
activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, put the death toll at
15.
It was not clear who carried out the
bombing and why they attacked a civilian target in a rebel-held area.
Syria's conflict has seen an increasing use of car bombings, but most
have been carried out against regime targets, usually by jihadi fighters
among rebels.
Meanwhile, Syria became a full
member of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on
Monday, in another step toward eliminating its chemical weapons
stockpile by mid-2014.
The mission is overseen
by the OPCW and the United Nations. The joint team has inspected five
of at least 20 sites in the past two weeks, according to the OPCW chief.
Ahmet
Uzumcu signaled that the team of 60 OPCW inspectors and U.N. staff is
encountering difficulties. He was quoted as saying that one abandoned
site was in rebel-held territory and that in other cases, routes went
through opposition-controlled areas, preventing access because rebels
have not promised cooperation.
"They (the
areas) change hands from one day to another, which is why we appeal to
all sides in Syria to support this mission, to be cooperative and not
render this mission more difficult. It's already challenging," he told
the BBC.
The OPCW won the Nobel Peace Prize last week, in a strong endorsement of its Syria mission.
U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, selected Sigrid Kaag, a
Middle East expert from the Netherlands, to head the joint OPCW-U.N.
team in Syria, U.N. diplomats said. Kaag is an assistant administrator
of the U.N. Development Program and speaks Arabic, said the diplomats
who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a public announcement.
The
push to eliminate Syria's stockpile of about 1,000 metric tons of
blistering and nerve agents stems from an Aug. 21 chemical weapons
attack on opposition-held suburbs of Damascus. Hundreds were killed,
including many children. The West says the Syrian government was
responsible, while Damascus blames the rebels.
Syrian
President Bashar Assad said Monday that his country stopped
manufacturing chemical agents in 1997 because they became an "outdated
deterrent." He said Syria has since concentrated on its missile
capabilities.
Damascus is believed to have
thousands of long-range missiles that can reach targets almost anywhere
inside Israel, its archenemy.
"Developing
Syria's missile deterrent force that can be used from the first moments
of war ended the necessity of chemical weapons," Assad was quoted as
saying in the Lebanese Al-Akbar newspaper.
Nonetheless, Assad said, Syria is suffering a "moral and political loss" in handing over its chemical weapons.
Asked about the OPCW's Nobel prize, Assad attempted an apparent joke, saying, "this prize should have been mine."
More
than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the
Syria conflict erupted in March 2011, with a popular uprising that
escalated into a civil war. The country has turned into a patchwork of
regime- and rebel-held areas. Assad's political opponents are divided,
while Islamic extremists have emerged as dominant in many rebel areas.
Despite
the fractured nature of the opposition, U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry said talks on a political transition must begin by mid-November,
as envisioned by the U.N.
Kerry said Syria
urgently needs a transitional government, but that Assad "has lost the
legitimacy to be able to be a cohesive force that could bring people
together."
It's uncertain if the Syrian political opposition will attend.
Opposition
figure George Sabra said a final decision of the Syrian National
Council, the main Western-backed umbrella group, is expected at a
conference starting Oct. 24. Sabra's group, the largest in the council,
won't attend transition talks, he said.
The
opposition wants Assad to step down first. It has also expressed anger
over the chemical weapons deal, in which the regime is treated as a
partner. "Unfortunately, they let the criminal escape from punishment,"
Sabra said.
