UN: Syria civil war fatalities surpass 100,000

Associated Press

DAMASCUS, Syria

The number of dead in Syria’s civil war has passed 100,000, the U.N. chief said Thursday, calling for urgent talks on ending 21/2 years of violence even as President Bashar Assad’s government blasted the United States as an unsuitable peace broker.

In the latest example of the relentless carnage, a car bomb killed at least 10 people and wounded 66 in a pro-regime, residential area near the capital.

All international attempts to broker a political solution to the Syrian civil war have failed. Despite a stalemate that has settled in for months, both sides still believe they can win the war and have placed impossible conditions for negotiations.

The international community has been unable — and some say, unwilling — to intervene sufficiently to tip the balance in favor of either the Assad regime or the rebels.

“There is no military solution to Syria,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the United Nations. “There is only a political solution, and that will require leadership in order to bring people to the table.”

He spoke ahead of talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said the death toll had risen from nearly 93,000 just over a month ago to more than 100,000. Syrian opposition groups had made that same estimate a month ago.

The uprising against Assad’s rule began in March 2011 and deteriorated into an insurgency with growing sectarian overtones.