Cease-Fire Broken in Syria

Car Bomb Rocks Deir Ezzor

An explosion on Saturday morning, October 27, 2012, shattered an already unstable cease-fire in Syria. The cease fire was called under observance of the Eid al-Adha holiday: a four day holiday that started this past Friday. The explosion took place in the Deir Ezzor, originating from a car bomb. The actual target of the attack is being disputed by both national and rebel forces. The Syrian government has claimed that the car bomb was set off just outside of a church, whereas the opposition movement is countering that a military instillation was the intended target. This attack follows unconfirmed reports of as many as 100 people being killed in explosions just hours after the start of the cease-fire, according to the opposition movement. The Syrian government has responded that any action taken at all was in retaliation to terrorist attacks in the country during the cease-fire. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, has issued a call to Muslims everywhere to support the Syrian national government in the conflict. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria have reported that as many as 93 people were killed in clashes following the car bomb on Saturday. In light of this break in the cease-fire, even further pushes for United Nations’ intervention in the violence have arisen, though both Russia and China refuse to involve themselves in the affairs of the foreign country. At the time of this writing, an exact casualty report for areas heavy with fighting cannot be reliably discerned.