A U.N. observer convoy was bombed Tuesday at a Syrian funeral procession, the opposition said, as the United Nations reported its vehicles were hit but that staff escaped unharmed in apparently the same attack.
At least 20 people were killed and dozens wounded when Syrian regime forces opened fire on a funeral procession in Idlib province during a visit by U.N. monitors, a watchdog said.
“The Syrian regime committed a massacre Tuesday during a visit by U.N. monitors to Khan Sheikhun,” in the northwestern province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Separately, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said a roadside bomb exploded in front of a convoy of U.N. ceasefire monitors in Khan Sheikhun, but no injuries were reported among U.N. workers.
Video uploaded to YouTube by activists showed a convoy of U.N. vehicles surrounded by dozens of people before a blast was heard and a puff of smoke went up in front of the leading U.N. -marked jeep.
It was unclear from the footage if anybody was injured, and the jeep was driven off despite having its front hood damaged. The authenticity of the video could not be verified.
Activists said the four-vehicle U.N. convoy in Khan Sheikhun had come under attack and one car was hit by a shell, prompting the monitors to quickly leave the area.
Major Sami al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told AFP that the monitors had arrived during the funeral and that their presence had encouraged more mourners to turn out and join the procession.
“The regime dared to attack the procession, however, and then targeted the vehicles of the U.N. observers from a regime checkpoint,” he said.
The Observatory, a Britain-based rights watchdog, called for an international probe into the killings that took place during the funeral of a man killed the day before.
It also urged the 200-strong U.N. monitoring mission overseeing a tenuous ceasefire in Syria to launch its own investigation.
Opposition votes to keep secular head
The attack came hours after the Syrian National Council (SNC), an umbrella group in which the influence of Islamists is extensive, re-elected Burhan Ghalioun, a sociologist long resident in France, as its leader for another three months.
People involved in the vote said the secular Ghalioun was viewed as acceptable to Syria’s array of sects and ethnicities.
Damascus said more than half of eligible voters turned out for a parliamentary election last week, part of reforms it says show Assad’s intent to resolve the uprising peacefully.
Khalaf al-Azzawi, head of the judiciary body that oversaw the election, said 51 percent of eligible voters had turned out, down slightly from an election in 2007 when the rule of Assad’s Baath party was unchallenged.
At least one independent figure made it into the assembly, according to results Azzawi read out in a televised news conference in Damascus. No figures were given for turnout in cities and towns under siege by government forces.
“The election gave the people the broadest possible representation,” he told a televised news conference in Damascus. “The election took place with full transparency, democracy, integrity, supervised and monitored by independent judicial councils which were not pressured by any side.”
Opposition leaders dismissed the election in advance as a ruse to buy more time for crushing dissent and said voting was not feasible in areas under continued siege and shelling from Assad’s security forces.
The vote follows amendments to Syria’s constitution to allow more political parties, a move Damascus has cited as evidence of good faith to move toward a political solution to the bloodshed.
A peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan in April calls for the release of detainees and for peaceful protests to be allowed.
Cross-border ripples
Syrian activists uploaded this video of the attack on the UN convoy to YouTube. The United Nations has confirmed that its convoy in Syria was bombed this afternoon while a human rights group reported a Syrian military attack on civilians at a nearby funeral in the Syrian town of  in  today.

Just prior to the bombing of the UN convoy at around 1400 Eastern European Time (UTC+2), the Syrian military is said to have attacked a funeral procession and reportedly 20 people were killed in that incident. The attack on civilians by the Syrian military was reported by the .

According to Martin Nesirky, who is the UN spokesperson for Secretary-General , an IED bomb struck its four-vehicle convoy. UN personnel had to be left behind after the blast but no UN staff were injured. Later, the UN sent a patrol to pick up personnel left behind. Three UN marked vehicles were damaged.

A video uploaded to the video sharing website YouTube reportedly shows the UN convoy being targeted and bombed.

About a dozen civilians can be seen surrounding the lead car of the convoy talking to UN observers. Some civilians can be heard screaming. Several seconds later, a bomb explodes near what appears to be the lead car of the convoy severely damaging the front end of the vehicle and injuring several civilians. The lead car, still operating, begins to leave the area. The two other vehicles follow. According to reports, several civilians were injured and or killed in the attack. The UN has reportedly stated that none of their observers were injured. 

"We went to observe and after a while shooting occurred"; "We are safe with the  and we are waiting for a U.N. group to pick us up," said UN observers to . According to reports, the UN is seeking "to remove the observers from the area."

It is not yet known who was responsible for the attack on the UN convoy.