DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: A roadside bomb exploded in a restive suburb of the Syrian capital as senior U.N. officials toured the area Sunday, the latest incident in which the unarmed observer mission has nearly been caught up in the country’s bloodshed.

No casualties were reported in the blast that went off 150 meters away from visiting U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the chief of U.N. observers in Syria. Journalists accompanying the team were also nearby. The explosion blew off the front of a parked vehicle.

A U.N. observer team with more than 250 members now on the ground has failed to quell the bloodshed in Syria, although it says it has had a “calming effect” in certain areas. Meanwhile, on several occasions, the team has come close to being caught in an attack, although there is no conclusive proof that it has been targeted.

Earlier this month, a bomb targeting an army truck exploded seconds after a convoy carrying Mood went past in the country’s south. Last week, a roadside bomb damaged the mission’s cars in a northern town just minutes after witnesses said regime forces gunned down mourners at a nearby funeral procession. It was not immediately clear what the target of Sunday’s explosion was, but the damaged car was parked near a security checkpoint in the suburb of Douma. A security official at the checkpoint told the U.N. observers gunmen had targeted two military buses in Douma earlier in the day, wounding more than 30 security agents.

“We obviously don’t have the specifics about what happened here this morning,” Mood said Sunday.

Ladsous gave a grim assessment of conditions for civilians in Douma, the scene of repeated clashes between security forces and rebels in recent months.

“The city [Douma] is completely paralyzed,” Ladsous said. “There is still some fighting taking place ... It’s absolutely imperative that all parties exercise restraint and don’t engage in any more fighting. It serves nothing.”

Activists reported heavy shelling Sunday in the town of Soran in the central Hama province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called on the international observers to visit Soran and investigate reports of more than a dozen killed. “Thirty-four people were killed under shelling and gunfire in Souran village while it was being raided,” the watchdog said, revising up an earlier toll of 16 people killed, including three children.

“Where are the international monitors,” read an Observatory statement. “We in the Observatory express our extreme shock at the international monitors’ failure to go to Souran when we issued our first statement on the killing of 16 people.”

In Damascus, opposition groups reported fighting overnight between government forces and army defectors in the district of Kfar Souseh, a hotbed of dissent against President Bashar Assad’s regime. The district is a high security area, housing the Foreign Ministry and several security and intelligence agencies. It has also been the scene of frequent anti-Assad demonstrations since the uprising began.

“Violent clashes broke out between rebel fighters and regime troops at a checkpoint in Kfar Souseh district,” the Observatory said in a statement. Both the Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said explosions and gunfire were also heard in several other neighborhoods of Damascus.

Syrian rebels claimed in an Internet statement that they carried out a sophisticated attack that killed top political and security officials meeting in the capital. The posting claimed those killed included Maj. Gen. Assef Shawkat, the deputy chief of staff for security affairs; Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha; Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar and former Defense Minister Hasan Turkmani.

Several of those officials reported killed subsequently showed up in public to refute the claims. Al-Shaar denied them at a news conference. Turkmani was interviewed by state-run Syrian TV in his office and said the claims were “blatant lies.”

Syrian officials rarely respond to statements issued by the opposition and their quick denials Sunday were unusual.