BEIRUT - A roadside bomb has struck a car belonging to the UN observer mission in Syria on Tuesday, just minutes after regime forces opened fired on a funeral procession nearby and caused multiple casualties, witnesses and the mission said.
The observers were not among the dead or wounded, activists said.
"The front of a UN car took a direct hit," Idlib-based activist Fadi al-Yassin, who witnessed the attack, told The Associated Press. "Everyone ran in panic but the observers stayed in the car. People tried to talk to them but they wouldn't even open their windows."
Just minutes earlier, Syrian forces fired on a funeral procession, activists said. Al-Yassin and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated the death toll could be as high as 20 people. It was impossible to independently confirm the toll.
"This is a real massacre and it took place in the presence of UN observers," Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Observatory, said of the attack on the funeral. He called for an international investigation and for the monitors to state publicly what they saw.