Twin blasts rock Damascus security compound

DAMASCUS: The main opposition Syrian National Council has agreed to expand to include more groups opposing Bashar Assad and will reform to be more representative, a spokesman told AFP yesterday.
At a meeting in Stockholm late Saturday, the SNC agreed to expand its membership and to hold a vote later this month to elect its leadership, spokesman George Sabra said.
The move follows criticism from both within and outside the group that it is failing to unite the diverse opposition forces working against Assad, after more than 17 months of brutal conflict.
Meanwhile, twin bombs exploded near a tightly guarded government compound in the heart of Damascus yesterday, state media said, as new international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said change was “unavoidable.”
Four people were wounded in the twin bombings which struck in the Abu Remmaneh district where several security service buildings and the office of Vice President Faruq Shara are located, state television said.
Shara is the highest-ranking Sunni Muslim in Assad's minority Alawite-led government.
Earlier, state media reported that a car bomb explosion near a mosque at Sbeneh in the southern outskirts of the capital on Saturday killed 15 people. Sbeneh is a poor neighborhood where anti-government sentiment is strong.
The explosions came after a car bombing hit a funeral for two government supporters in the southeastern suburb of Jaramana on Aug. 28 killing at least 27 people, according to the Syrian Observatory.
The violence in the capital came as the army renewed its bombardment of rebel-held areas in the provinces.
Shelling of Qusayr destroyed the last working bakery in the rebel-held part of the central town, activists said, aggravating a growing food shortage and highlighting the plight of civilians trapped by the fighting.
Human rights watchdogs have expressed growing concern about deteriorating conditions in areas under protracted siege and bombardment by the army, including parts of second city Aleppo and third city Homs.
“The shelling of Hanano did not stop from midnight until 5 a.m.,” an activist told AFP from the pro-opposition northeastern district of Aleppo, a city of some 2.7 million people and a major battleground between troops and rebels since July 20.
“People are used to the power cuts, but the most difficult thing is getting hold of medicines, food and milk,” the activist told AFP.
Brahimi, who took over as international peace envoy on Saturday, told Al-Jazeera that “change is necessary, indispensable, unavoidable.”
Brahiimi took over amid mounting pessimism about the prospects for peace after Annan announced he was stepping down last month blaming divisions in the international community for the failure of his April six-point peace plan.
The violence has since intensified with August much the bloodiest month of a conflict now in its 18 month that has killed more than 26,000 people, according to Syrian Observatory figures.