Syria: blast reported near UN convoy
Free Syrian Army members from the al-Faruq Brigade carry the body of one of their comrades to the Khaled Ibn al-Walid mosque for his funeral in the al-Khalidiyah neighbourhood of the central Syrian city of Homs on May 3, 2012. The UN admitted a shaky three-week-old truce in Syria is not holding but said the number of observers would be doubled within days.
A huge blast hit vehicles accompanying United Nations cease-fire monitors in Syria, according to witnesses and a local report, said Reuters.
The explosion took place outside the southern city of Deraa early today, with witnesses telling BBC News that the blast shattered truck windows and injured several Syrian soldiers.
The Associated Press said the roadside bomb went off only 100 meters behind the UN convoy but did not hurt anyone in it.
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Syria is reeling from a year of bloody unrest that pitted embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad against a growing anti-government movement in violence that has left some 9,000 people dead.
The UN deployed the some 300 unarmed monitors to Syria last month as part of a joint UN-Arab League peace plan brokered by the international envoy Kofi Annan in a bid to resolve the crisis.
The deal appears to be unraveling, however, as reports of continued bloodshed defy government promises it would stop, with Annan on Tuesday telling reporters the "levels of violence and abuses are unacceptable."
Syria held parliamentary elections on Monday, a vote widely denounced by the opposition and largely dismissed by the international community.