UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (Xinhua) -The UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) on Friday continued to step up its deployment on the ground, despite a series of blasts hit different cities of the Middle East country, which has been plunged into a crisis since March 2011, a UN spokesman told reporters here.
"On Friday, the mission had 145 observers and 56 civilian staff deployed in Syria," UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said at a daily news briefing. "The mission is also carrying out patrols, one day after the attacks that took place in Damascus."
A powerful explosion went off near the ruling party headquarters in Syria's northern city of Aleppo on Friday evening, reports said. This blast is the second following the May 5 explosion in the city, killing at least five people.
On Thursday, two suicide blasts rip through Qazaz neighborhood in Damascus, killing 55 people in an attack that targeted a military intelligence building as employees were arriving at work, reports said.
"On Thursday afternoon, in a press statement, the members of the Security Council condemned those attacks in the strongest terms and expressed their deep sympathy and sincere condolences to the victims and their families," the spokesman said.
With a total mandated strength of 300 unarmed military observers and additional civilian staff as required, the UN mission continues to receive new members on a daily basis as it expands its presence across the Middle East country.
Despite the ongoing, but decreased violence in parts of Syria, the United Nations is working very hard to bring all the 300 unarmed observers into the Middle East country by the end of May, Herve Ladsous, the UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"We are working very actively on this, and we will actually achieve full deployment before the end of the month," Ladsous said.
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