New shelling, pessimism in Syria a day after bomb kills top government aides At a news briefing in Damascus on Thursday, the head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, was notably downbeat. "It pains me to say, but we are not on the track for peace in Syria, and the escalations we have witnessed in Damascus over the past few days is a testimony to that," Mood said. The mandate of the observer mission is set to expire Friday, unless the Security Council votes to extend it. Mood said that the U.N. team had "done our best, under very challenging circumstances." Regional leaders seemed equally pessimistic. In an interview Wednesday with CNN, Jordan's King Abdullah said that a settlement between the rebels and the government seemed unlikely. "The realities on the ground may have overtaken us," Abdullah said. I think the clock is ticking and we have . . . reached the point where the political option is too late. Army snipers spread across rooftops in the Mezze area of Damascus on Thursday, and helicopters were targeting rebel fighters in the neighborhood of Qaboun, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group. Government forces were shelling Damascus neighborhoods including Qaboun, Kfar Sousa, Zamalkeh and Seyida Zeinab, the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, reported. There have also been sporadic blackouts across the city in the past 24 hours, according to residents. Abed, a Damascus resident who asked that his full name not be used because he feared retaliation for pro-government forces, said he had been watching helicopters circle over his area on Thursday morning and could see smoke rising from neighboring areas. "The center of Qaboun is under attack," he said. I hear the loud sound of explosions from there. The blast on Wednesday, which targeted a mid-morning meeting of top security chiefs charged with suppressing Syria's 16-month-old uprising, appeared to have been meticulously planned and executed, suggesting that rebels have managed to infiltrate Assad's security apparatus in ways that call into question his regime's capacity to survive. The attack seemed to mark a pivotal moment in the revolt, the first time that the regime's tightly controlled and fiercely loyal inner circle has been punctured since Syrians first took to the streets to demand reforms in March 2011 and, later, took up arms. Among those killed was Assef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law, who was widely feared as one of the chief enforcers of the brutal tactics that have been used in the effort to quell the unrest.