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"No one should blame us for joining al-Nusra. Blame the west if Syria is going to become a haven for al-Qaida and extremists. The west left Assad's gangs to slaughter us. They never bothered to support the FSA. They disappointed ordinary Syrian protesters who just wanted their freedom and to have Syria for all Syrians."

US President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorising US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, Reuters news agency said quoting sources familiar with the matter.

The White House has apparently stopped short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some US allies have been doing just that.

A US government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the US was collaborating with a secret command centre operated by Turkey and its allies.

Mohammed Shaar, the Syrian interior minister, also blamed a suicide bomber for "detonating himself with the aim of killing the largest number of people". The blast came exactly two weeks after twin bombings killed 44 people in the city.

"The opposition, on the other hand, is saying that this is a plot staged by the government to deter thousands of people that were planning to converge on that same spot to call for the international community to step in and enforce a no-fly zone and enforce also a dramatic of the regime in Syria." Colonel Riad al-Asaad, the head of the Free Syrian Army, has dismissed the government's report of the attack, saying that Friday's explosion was "the work of the regime, just like the previous two explosions."

The head of the Arab League said on Friday he had asked the Damascus-based leader of the Palestinian group Hamas to ask the Syrian government to work to halt violence in the country. Nabil Elaraby, the Arab League secretary-general, was speaking alongside Khaled Meshaal after a meeting in Cairo.