140 killed as clashes sweep Syria

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Battles between government forces and rebels left more than 140 people dead across Syria on Tuesday, while the brother of the parliament speaker was gunned down in Damascus - the latest victim of a wave of assassinations targeting high-ranking supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.

The violence aroused new concern about faltering diplomatic efforts to try to end the conflict. Britain's prime minister offered the latest long-shot suggestion - that Assad could be allowed safe passage out of the country if that would guarantee an end to the fighting.

But there has been no sign the embattled Syrian leader is willing to step down as part of a peaceful transition to save the country. Assad has vowed to militarily crush the nearly 20-month-old rebellion against his rule, and aides say a new president will not be chosen until elections scheduled for 2014.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who, like his predecessor, Kofi Annan, has been unable to put an end to the conflict, warned the civil war could spiral into new levels of chaos.

"The situation in Syria is very dangerous," Brahimi said in remarks published Tuesday in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. "I believe that if the crisis is not solved . . . there will be the danger of Somalization. It will mean the fall of the state, rise of warlords and militias."

Somalia has been mired in conflict for more than two decades after warlords overthrew the east African nation's longtime dictator in 1991 and then turned on one another. The government, backed by African Union troops, is currently battling Islamist extremist rebels linked to al-Qaeda.

Syria, by comparison, has always had a strong central government. Despite losing large areas of territory, the government still maintains a grip on many parts of the country, including Damascus, the seat of Assad's power, where basic government services still function.

But if the government collapses, the country could fast shatter along multiple fault lines, leading to protracted bloodshed.

More than 36,000 people have perished in the fighting, according to activists, and the death toll rises daily.

On Tuesday, more than 140 people were killed in violence across the country, activists said, including a series of air strikes on rebel strongholds in the suburbs of Damascus. Among the dead were at least 13 people killed when three bombs exploded in the al-Wuroud district on the capital's northwestern edge, near housing for the elite Republican Guard.

The brother of Syria's parliament speaker was killed in a hail of bullets by gunmen who targeted him as he drove to work in Damascus. Mohammed Osama Laham, brother of Speaker Jihad Laham, was the latest government supporter to be targeted for assassination.

Diplomacy has been deadlocked at the U.N., where Syria's allies Russia and China have repeatedly blocked attempts to approve harsher sanctions in the Security Council.

British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested Tuesday that Assad could be allowed safe passage out of the country if that would guarantee an end to the nation's civil war.

In London, officials said Cameron was not suggesting that Assad could escape potential international prosecution if he were to be granted passage out of Syria. They also said there were no talks aimed at crafting an exit deal.