A powerful blast went off within a few metres of a team of UN truce monitors visiting the Damascus suburb of Douma on Sunday, an AFP correspondent reported. Regular army troops at the scene said the explosion was caused by a rocket-propelled grenade. The UN observers did not comment on the nature of the explosion. Among the UN monitors’ team in Douma were mission head Major General Robert Mood and UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, an AFP correspondent reported. The blast caused no injuries, the journalist said. It exploded a dozen metres away from where the team stood in Douma, a northern suburb of the Syrian capital, as violent clashes between rebels and regime troops were underway, the journalist said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier Sunday that regime troops had launched rockets both near and into Douma. After the observers left the area, a civilian was shot dead in Douma by a sniper, the Observatory added. The AFP correspondent said the streets of Douma were deserted, and most of its shops were closed. Posters had been torn off the walls and rubbish containers overturned. Pro- and anti-regime slogans filled the walls of what appeared to be a ghost town. “Douma will not kneel except before God,” read one slogan, while another read “Assad’s soldiers were here.” “When the observers leave, the armed men will come back to cause trouble,” one soldier told reporters at the scene, in a reference to rebels who have taken up arms over the course of the anti-regime revolt.
