International
A car bomb exploded in a neighborhood in Syria's capital Damascus Tuesday, killing at least three people, the government and activists said.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least seven people were killed and 15 were wounded. The difference in the death tolls could not immediately be reconciled.
The state-run SANA news agency said the blast hit the contested district of Tadamon, an impoverished neighborhood in the southern part of the capital. The agency said 11 people were wounded.
The area has witnessed heavy fighting and changed hands several times between rebels and troops. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Tuesday's attack.
The Syrian civil war began with largely peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime in March 2011. Since then, the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives and uprooted millions of people from their homes. The U.N. said earlier this month the number refugees in Syria has surpassed the two million mark.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, addressed the Syrian conflict during his speech Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly.
Obama said the U.N. Security Council must agree to a resolution on Syrian chemical weapons that includes consequences for Assad's regime if he doesn't meet demands to dismantle his chemical stockpile. Obama and other Western leaders have condemned the Syrian regime for allegedly using chemical weapons in an Aug. 21 attack in the suburbs of Damascus that left over 1,400 people dead.
A team of U.N. chemical weapons experts found that chemical weapons were used, but the report they issued did not determine who used them.
Earlier this month, Russia and the U.S. agreed on a framework for removing Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles. The agreement between Washington and Moscow came as Obama was pushing Congress to approve a military strike against Syria. But Russia has challenged the Obama administration's claim of Assad culpability in the attack, and the Assad regime has blamed rebel forces for the chemical attack.
Obama aggressively pushed back against those claims in his speech Tuesday.
"It's an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack," said Obama.
Wire services
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