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A suicide bomber targeting a police bus killed up to 25 people today in Damascus, Syria, in the latest in on-going violence plaguing the Middle East nation. Nearly a hundred observers from the Arab League who arrived in Syria last week plan on staying despite reports that the Syrian government continues to kill civilians. The observers were meant to oversee the Syrian government’s promises to pull back its military presence in Syrian cities, and to release hundreds of political prisoners as per a peace accord sponsored by the Arab League. However, just prior to the observers’ arrival, democracy activists in Syria reported that the government had killed 160 people, including soldiers who were defecting. Dozens more people have been killed in the weeks since, despite the presence of the observers. The Syrian government in turn has linked a pair of suicide car bombs in late December reportedly killing more than 40 people, to the Syrian opposition and Al Qaeda. Opposition spokespeople including those from the so-called Free Syrian Army, vehemently denied they had anything to do with the attacks and hinted that they may have been staged by Bashar Al Assad’s government. The United Nations estimates that more than 5000 Syrians have been killed over the ten month long uprising. There are currently two main opposition groups in Syria, the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change [NCB] and the Syrian National Council [SNC]. In recent days both groups have reportedly attempted and failed to unite. Still, grassroots anger and organizing remains strong. On the Friday before New Year’s Day, hundreds of thousands of Syrians opposed to the government marched in various major cities to demonstrate their on-going resilience in the face of violent repression to the Arab and international community.

GUEST: Elaine Hagopian, a Syrian-American sociologist, a professor emeritus of sociology at Simmons College in Boston and political interviewer for Arabic Hour TV