BEIRUT – A powerful car bomb exploded in Damascus Friday, inflicting many casualties and buffeting a shaky temporary truce in the Syrian conflict on the occasion of a Eid Al-Adha holiday. State television said the “terrorist car bomb” had killed five people and wounded 32, according to “preliminary figures.” Opposition activists said the bomb had gone off near a makeshift children's playground built for the Eid Al-Adha holiday in the southern Daf Al-Shok district of the capital. Fighting erupted around Syria earlier as both sides violated the Eid Al-Adha ceasefire arranged by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, but violence was far less intense than usual. The Syrian military said it had responded to attacks by insurgents on army positions, in line with its announcement Thursday that would cease military activity during the four-day holiday, but reserved the right to react to rebel actions. Brahimi's ceasefire appeal had won widespread international support, including from Russia, China and Iran, President Bashar Al-Assad's main foreign allies. The UN-Arab League envoy had hoped to build on the truce to calm a 19-month-old conflict that has killed an estimated 32,000 people and worsened instability in the Middle East. Violence appeared to wane in some areas, but truce breaches by both sides swiftly marred Syrians' hopes of celebrating Eid Al-Adha. “We are not celebrating Eid here,” said a woman in a besieged Syrian town near the Turkish border, speaking above the noise of incessant gunfire and shelling. “No one is in the mood to celebrate. Everyone is just glad they are alive.” Her husband, a portly, bearded man in his 50s, said they and their five children had just returned to the town after nine days camped out on a farm with other families to escape clashes. “We have no gifts for our children. We can't even make phone calls to our families,” he said, a young daughter on his lap. For some in Syria, there was no respite from war, but by dusk the death toll was still significantly lower than in recent days, when often between 150 to 200 people have been killed. The heaviest fighting took place around the army base at Wadi Al-Daif, near the Damascus-Aleppo highway, which rebels have been trying to seize from the army for two weeks. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine soldiers were killed by rebel bombardment of the base, which completely destroyed one building, and four rebel fighters were killed in clashes around Wadi Al-Daif. – Reuters
