Syrian rebel battalions from the Yousef al-Azma brigade in Idlib have surrounded a military encampment near the Syrian-Turkish border for four days, rebels told Reuters on Sunday (October 21).<br/> <br />The Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters said they are trying to put pressure on the camp's approximately 150 soldiers to surrender.<br/> <br />FSA fighters unleashed a barrage of gunfire in the direction of the camp on Sunday.<br/> <br />Fighters took turns to fire bursts of machine gunfire while another fighter discharged rounds from a heavy machine gun mounted on the back of a pick-up truck.<br/> <br />One of the FSA fighters said the government troops were surrounded with no chance of escape.<br/> <br />Syria's conflict, which started with peaceful protests for reform, has escalated into a civil war marked by heavy use of artillery and air power by Assad's forces and regular bombings against symbols of his authority in Syria's main cities.<br/> <br />A car bomb killed 13 people in central Damascus on Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad told an international mediator seeking a truce in Syria's civil war that the key to any political solution was to stop arming rebels.<br/> <br />The bomb exploded outside a police station in the mainly Christian central Bab Touma district of the capital while Assad held talks with United Nations-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is pushing for a temporary ceasefire to mark the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.<br/> <br />Speaking after his meeting with Assad, Brahimi gave few details of the talks but reiterated his call for a pause in the violence, which activists say has killed more than 30,000 people since the uprising against Assad erupted in March last year.<br/> <br />The violence has spread across Syria's frontiers. Assad's forces exchanged cross-border artillery fire with Turkey several times this month and on Friday (October 19) a huge car bomb in Beirut killed a top intelligence official whose investigations had implicated Syria in trying to stoke violence on Lebanese soil.
