DEADLY

Blast Near U.N. Convoy in Syria

Explosion hit military truck escorting the observers.

An explosion on Wednesday rocked a military vehicle escorting a group of United Nations observers in Syria, and at least three Syrian soldiers were wounded. The head of the U.N. team, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, was in the convoy and was not wounded, and neither were any of the other observers. Mood called the blast “a graphic example of the violence Syria does not need.” The observers are in Syria in part to monitor the violence, but their presence has not stopped it. U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council that arms are being smuggled in from both directions, and “what we see across the region is a dance of death at the brink of the abyss of war.”