Blast kills dozens in Syria as UN aid chief calls for humanitarian access

At least 104 people, including children, were reportedly killed by a car bomb that went off near a mosque on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Britain-based activist group said reports from the village of al-Souq, in Syria’s Barada valley, warned that the number of those killed by the blast could exceed 200.

The government and rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad blamed each other for the attack.

The explosion came hours after Syrian government troops ambushed rebels near Damascus, killing at least 40 opposition fighters, according to state media reports. The ambush was part of the military's offensive against rebel strongholds around Assad's seat of power.

The state-run SANA news agency said the ambush took place near the Otaiba area, and that a large arms cache was seized, including antitank rockets. The area is in the region of Eastern Ghouta, which was the scene of a chemical weapons attack in August when hundreds of people, including many women and children, were killed.

The ambush came hours after Assad's forces captured the town of Hatitat al-Turkomen south of the city, securing a key highway that links the capital with Damascus International Airport.

Also Friday, Kurdish gunmen battled rebels in a northeastern Syrian town along the border with Iraq, leaving a number of casualties on both sides, activists said. Such battles have become increasingly common, adding another complex layer to the civil war, now in its third year.

Syrian state media also reported that the head of the Al-Qaeda-linked group Al-Nusra Front, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, was killed in the west of the country. The report is unconfirmed.

Meanwhile, United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos demanded stronger action by the U.N. Security Council to get desperately needed aid into the devastated country, where 2.5 million people in need have not received help for almost a year.

More than 100,000 people have been killed so far in the war, and more than 2 million refugees have fled Syria. Neighboring countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan are struggling to accommodate the masses of people.

After months of talks, the 15-member Security Council approved a nonbinding statement on Oct. 2 urging increased humanitarian access.

But Amos said that little had changed in the three weeks since the statement was made. She said only 15 international aid groups were allowed to operate in Syria, it was difficult for humanitarian workers to get visas, and while the number of Syrian organizations approved to work with the U.N. had increased to 66, the number allowed to work in the areas with greatest need was limited.

The Security Council adopted the statement on humanitarian access less than a week after overcoming a long diplomatic impasse between Russia and Western countries to pass a resolution to rid Syria of chemical arms. Senior U.N. diplomats said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had at the time dismissed the possibility of a legally binding resolution on aid access.

Russia, a close ally of Assad, and China have vetoed three Security Council resolutions since October 2011 that would have condemned the government and threatened it with sanctions.

Wire services