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Most have targeted security buildings and police buses, symbols of Assad's regime. Activists say some 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011. State-run news agency SANA reported Friday that authorities had arrested an al-Qaida terrorist who planned to blow himself up in a Damascus mosque during Friday prayers. It identified the man as Mohammad Hussam al-Sudaqi. Russia, which along with China, has shielded Assad's regime from international sanctions over its violent crackdown on protesters, denied Thursday's statement by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that Moscow and Washington were discussing a post-Assad transition strategy. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov denied that Friday. "It's not true that we are discussing Syria's fate after Bashar Assad," Lavrov said. An international rights watchdog, meanwhile, accused Syrian government forces of using sexual violence to torture men, women and boys detained during the uprising. In a report released Friday, The New York-based Human Rights Watch also quoted witnesses and victims as saying that soldiers and pro-government armed militias sexually abused women and girls as young as 12 during home raids and military sweeps of residential areas. "Sexual violence in detention is one of many horrific weapons in the Syrian government's torture arsenal and Syrian security forces regularly use it to humiliate and degrade detainees with complete impunity," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. HRW said it does not have evidence that high-ranking officers commanded their troops to commit sexual violence but said it had information indicating that no action has been taken to investigate or punish government forces who did. It said detention facilities where male and female detainees have reported sexual torture include several departments of the intelligence agencies.
[Associated
Press;
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