Syria opp talks intensify as suicide bombs hit army

Damascus, Nov 10: Days of foreign-backed efforts to reorganise Syria's opposition were to come to a head on Saturday, as twin suicide bombings killed at least 20 soldiers in the south of the country.

Opposition talks in the Qatari capital Doha were to see the Syrian National Council vying to keep its leading role in the face of US- and Arab-backed proposals to form a new government-in-waiting that could win deeper support.

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad meanwhile suffered a new blow, as two suicide car bombings tore through an officers' club in the southern city of Daraa, the cradle of Syria's nearly 20-month uprising.

The blasts targeted the back garden of the club, killing at least 20 soldiers and possibly many more, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a key watchdog, said.

"The two bombings were the result of suicide attacks, carried out by two men who drove vehicles loaded with explosives into the garden a few minutes apart," the Britain-based Observatory's director, Rami Abdel Rahman told a news agency.

State news agency SANA reported that two car bomb attacks had hit the city, causing casualties and significant damage, but provided no further details.

Syrian rebels have increasingly turned to suicide attacks and car bombs in their fight against Assad's regime, with jihadist groups such as the Al-Nusra Front often claiming responsibility.

In Doha, the SNC -- once seen as the leading representative of the opposition but now derided in Washington as dominated by out-of-touch exiles -- said it would put forward its own reform proposals, despite mounting frustration with its stance among other dissidents.

"We have started an open dialogue with our brothers and looked at their initiative," the SNC's new leader, George Sabra, said ahead of the resumption of talks with other factions later today.

"But we have our own point of view and our own ideas that we plan to put forward," he said.

"The SNC is older than... any other initiative." The SNC had asked for two postponements in the talks while it elected its own new leadership, amid strong resistance from some members to what they see as the group's sidelining in the new US-backed structure.

The group chose Sabra, a Christian, as its new leader in a move seen as a response to criticism that Islamists play too dominant a role, but a major activist network inside Syria, the Local Coordination Committees, announced it was quitting the bloc in protest at its position on the unity talks.