Car bomb jars Damascus, killing eight

DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Women, children and members of a maintenance crew were among the casualties in a car bombing outside a building in Damascus Wednesday, Syrian authorities said.

The official SANA news agency said the explosion occurred outside the headquarters of the national railroad and was blamed on terrorists.

Seven of the eight people killed were part of a work crew conducting maintenance on the al-Hijaz Railway headquarters. The injured at Damascus Hospital included a number of women and children, SANA said.

The blast occurred about the same time a bombing at a traffic roundabout in Sweida was reported by a provincial police source. SANA said another eight victims died and 41 were hurt.

The Syrian government said Wednesday it would attend the so-called Geneva II negotiations without pre-conditions as a means of finding a way to end the violence, CNN said.

Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, told Russia Today TV it was prepared to sit down with international representatives and a delegation from the opposition rebels, whom she dismissed as being a front for Saudi Arabia's intelligence agencies and representing the interests of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.