Cluster bombs hit Syria rebel town

Rebels show what appear to be cluster bomblets. Inset, peace envoy Brahimi.

Syrian jets hammered a rebel town on the second day of an assault in which the regime is accused of using cluster bombs, as peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Damascus to press for a truce.
Brahimi is bidding to secure a ceasefire during a four-day Muslim holiday from October 26, hoping it will bring a longer cessation in the 19-month conflict that has already killed more than 34,000 people.
Violence has persisted, however, with rebels and loyalists of President Bashar al-Assad locked in battle for the northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan on the highway linking Syria's two biggest cities.
Assad's forces, who hold air supremacy, again battered the town a day after strikes on a residential area killed dozens, nearly half of them children, rescuers told an AFP reporter at the scene.
The military wants to regain control of the highway to resupply units under fire in second city Aleppo for the past three months, and assist 250 troops besieged in their Wadi Deif base.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the aircraft concentrated their firepower on rebel camps near Wadi Deif, also a major storage facility for armour and fuel.
Rebels showed AFP debris from cluster bombs which they accused the air force of dropping on residential areas, as well as dozens of other bomblets that failed to explode on impact.
The weapons bear the Cyrillic script on their tail fins, suggesting they could have been made in Russia -- a key Damascus ally.
Human Rights Watch has accused Syria of using cluster bombs, a charge denied by the military which insists it does not possess them.
The Observatory also reported cluster bombs were dropped last week on the town of Saraqeb north of Maaret al-Numan.
Syria has not ratified an international convention banning the weapon which can carry up to 650 submunitions.
Non-governmental groups say up to 40 percent of the bomblets fail to explode and that 98 percent of victims are civilians, including children who mistake them for toys.