Syrian war death toll tops 100,000, U.N. reports

DAMASCUS, Syria - The number of dead in Syria’s civil war has passed 100,000, the United Nations chief said Thursday, calling for urgent talks on ending 2½ years of violence even as President Bashar Assad’s government blasted the United States as an unsuitable peace broker.

A car bomb Thursday killed at least 10 people and wounded 66 in a pro-regime, residential area near the capital.

The international community has been unable - and, some say, unwilling - to intervene sufficiently to tip the balance in favor of either the Assad regime or the rebels.

“There is no military solution to Syria,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the United Nations. “There is only a political solution, and that will require leadership in order to bring people to the table.”

He spoke ahead of talks with U.N.

Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon, who said the death toll had risen from nearly 93,000 just over a month ago to more than 100,000. Syrian opposition groups had made that same estimate a month ago.

The uprising against Assad’s rule began in March 2011 and deteriorated into an insurgency with growing sectarian overtones.

Ban called on the Syrian government and opposition to halt the violence, saying it is “imperative to have a peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible.”

The U.S. and Russia are working to convene a conference, along with the United Nations, to try to agree on a transitional government based on a plan adopted in Geneva a year ago.

No official date has been set because the opposition refuses to attend any talks that are not about Assad’s departure. Syrian government officials say participation in the conference should be without preconditions, but add that Assad’s departure before his term expires in 2014 is not negotiable. Assad has also said he has the right to run for elections again.

Kerry said he talked to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday and that both countries remained committed to bringing the warring parties together to further peace efforts.

“We will try our hardest to make that happen as soon as is possible,” Kerry said.

The Syrian government criticized recent U.S. actions to start sending arms to the rebels, saying Washington is unsuitable to act as a broker at any peace negotiations.

“Washington’s decision to send arms to terrorists in Syria confirms that the American administration isnot objective in efforts to find a political solution and hold an international conference in Geneva,” Syrian state TV said, citing an unidentified Foreign Ministry official. Assad’s government routinely refers to opposition fighters as “terrorists.”

The U.S. government opposed providing any lethal assistance to Syria’s rebels until last month but is moving ahead now with sending weapons to vetted rebels after securing the approval of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

President Barack Obama and his national-security team have yet to say publicly what weapons they’ll provide and when they’ll deliver them. There also has been concern in the West that U.S. weapons could end up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked groups.

The Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed opposition group, said in a statement that it was committed to ensuring the arms reach only those loyal to the coalition and its affiliatedmilitary councils.

Thursday’s car bomb exploded in Jaramana, a suburb just a few miles southeast of Damascus that is overwhelmingly pro-regime.

The state news agency SANA reported that the blast caused heavy damage to nearby buildings and destroyed many cars. TV footage showed mangled cars and heavily damaged residential buildings. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Also Thursday, the Syrian National Coalition cast doubt on a mission by U.N. experts to investigate the purported use of chemical weapons in the civil war.

Both sides accuse each other of using the banned weapons. Swedish chemical-weapons expert Ake Sellstrom and U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane met with Syrian officials Tuesday in Damascus to try to hammer out terms for a possible probe.

The coalition said it was worried the experts would beswayed by Assad, who they predicted would try to restrict their movements.

In Lebanon, a senior Hezbollah official warned European countries that there will be “repercussions” to their decision this week to place the group’s military wing on the bloc’s list of terrorist organizations.

Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian war alongside Assad’s forces was among the reasons cited for the European Union decision earlier this week.

Ammar al-Moussawi, head of Hezbollah’s foreign-relations department, spoke after meeting with Angelina Eichhorst, the EU ambassador to Lebanon. He suggested after the talks that she was not given a warm reception.

“No one can condemn me with one hand, then extend the other to shake hands,” he told reporters in Beirut after the meeting.

Information for this article was contributed by Zeina Karam of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 7 on 07/26/2013

Upcoming Events