Car bomb in Syrian capital kills several
Russia says no evidence of civilian deaths in its Syria bombings
United States, Saudi push ceasefire ahead of Syria talks
More than 1 million are besieged in Syria
UN urges Turkey to open borders to Syrians

Car bomb in Syrian capital kills several

A car bomb driven by a suicide attacker exploded Tuesday near a police officers’ club and market in the Syrian capital Damascus, killing several people and causing wide material damage. The state-run SANA news agency said Tuesday the blast went off near a vegetable market in the northern neighborhood of Masaken Barzeh. The opposition’s Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the blast killed eight policemen and wounded 20 after it was detonated in the parking lot of the officers’ club. The blast came a day after international group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Syrian government forces and the Russian military have been carrying out daily cluster bomb attacks over the past two weeks in Syria, killing 37 people. The HRW report, released Monday, said that cluster munitions, which are widely banned, have been used in at least 14 attacks across five provinces since January 26, killing at least 37 civilians, including six women and nine children, and wounding dozens. HRW said the International Syria Support Group that will meet in Germany on Thursday “should make protecting civilians and ending indiscriminate attacks, including with cluster munitions, a key priority.” [AP, AFP, BBC, WSJ, 2/9/2016]

Russia says no evidence of civilian deaths in its Syria bombings
On Tuesday, Russia said there was no credible evidence of its air strikes causing civilian deaths in Syria, rejecting German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s criticism of the bombing campaign. Merkel said on Monday that Russian bombing had forced tens of thousands of Syrian civilians to flee, suggesting that the attacks violated a UN Security Council resolution that Moscow itself signed in December. European Council President Donald Tusk added to the pressure, saying the Russian actions were helping the “murderous” government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Responding to Merkel’s statement, made during a trip to Turkey, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists: “Despite a huge number of such statements, no one up to now has presented a single (piece of) credible evidence as proof of these words.” [Reuters, 2/9/2016]

United States, Saudi push ceasefire ahead of Syria talks
The United States and Saudi Arabia will push for an immediate ceasefire in Syria at international talks later this week, their top diplomats said Monday. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir met in Washington to prepare for broader negotiations in Munich in Thursday. There, the 17-nation International Syria Support Group will debate ways to restart a struggling UN-led effort to get Syria’s warring parties to the table. Kerry and Jubeir said they hoped the contact group, which includes the Syrian regime’s allies Russia and Iran, would agree to a rapid ceasefire on the ground. “We have a tremendous stake in trying to resolve the problems in the region before they consume all of us,” Jubeir said, giving brief remarks with Kerry. Both Kerry and Jubeir cited UN Security Council resolution 2254, which calls for a ceasefire and humanitarian access to besieged Syrian towns. “And we hope that when we meet in Munich in the next few days, we’ll be in a position where we can make progress on that goal,” Kerry said. [AFP, Reuters, 2/8/2016]

More than 1 million are besieged in Syria
A new report says more than one million Syrians are trapped in besieged areas, in a challenge to the United Nations, which estimates just half that amount and has been accused by some aid groups of underplaying a crisis. The new Siege Watch report, issued Tuesday by the Netherlands-based nonprofit PAX and the Washington-based Syria Institute, comes a month after images posted online of emaciated children and adults led to an international outcry and rare convoys of aid to a handful of Syrian communities. The Siege Watch report says 1.09 million people are living in 46 besieged communities in Syria, far more than the 18 listed by the United Nations. It says most are besieged by the Syrian government in the suburbs of Damascus, the capital, and Homs. In the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, about 200,000 people are besieged by both the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and the Syrian government. The report lists two communities besieged by armed opposition groups. Deaths have been reported from malnutrition, disease, hypothermia, and poisoning while scavenging for food. [AP, 2/9/2016]

UN urges Turkey to open borders to Syrians
The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people in Syria’s largest city could be soon cut off from humanitarian aid amid blistering Syrian and Russian airstrikes. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is calling on Turkish authorities to open the border to help those fleeing the violence. The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) says 300,000 people could be cut off from aid if the Syrian government and allied forces encircle Aleppo and deprive those fleeing from their last way out. Local leaders believe up to 150,000 people could try to flee to nearby Afrin and the surrounding countryside. Camps for the displaced along Syria’s border with Turkey are at full capacity, aid workers say. Tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing a Russian-backed government advance on Aleppo have remained stranded near the Turkish border over the weekend, with no sign that the authorities in Ankara will respond to mounting international pressure to allow in more refugees. Turkey insists that it has an open-door policy toward Syrians escaping conflict but has still kept a key border crossing closed for days. [AP, Reuters, Hurriyet, 2/9/2016]