A car bomb attack on a security checkpoint near a military airport in the Syrian capital Damascus has left at least ten soldiers dead and several others wounded, media reports citing Opposition activists said early Monday.
The attack reportedly targeted a checkpoint in the Mazzeh district in western Damascus on Sunday night. The military airport in Mazzeh serves as a main distribution point for the Syrian military, which is currently engaged in an intensified push to regain territories lost to the rebels.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group that monitors and reports casualties in the Syrian conflict, reported on Monday that the bombing killed at least ten Syrian soldiers and injured more than ten others.
SOHR, which depends on accounts of activists on the ground in Syria, claims its reports are impartial and unbiased. Nevertheless, such reports cannot be verified independently as most foreign media are barred from operating in the country.
Although Syrian state media also confirmed that there was a major explosion near the Mazzeh airport on Sunday night, it did not disclose further details or release any casualty figures.
The U.N. estimates that at least 93,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since an armed rebellion against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad began in Syria in March 2011. The conflict is now threatening to spill over to neighboring nations and increasingly becoming sectarian in nature.
International efforts at finding a solution to the crisis have been hampered by a deep divide in the U.N. Security Council, with Russia and China backing the Assad regime and the West opposing it.
Notably, the latest development comes amid efforts aimed at convincing the rebels and the Syrian government to attend an international conference planned jointly by Russia and the United States to find a political solution to the conflict.
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