DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: The number of dead in Syria’s civil war has passed 100,000, the U.N. chief said Thursday, calling for urgent talks on ending 2 ½ years of violence.

 

An opposition-aligned activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 2,014 people, mostly combatants, have been killed since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began on July 10 alone.

 

In the latest example of the relentless carnage, a car bomb killed at least 10 people and wounded 66 in a residential area near the capital Damascus.

 

All international attempts to broker a political solution to the Syrian civil war have failed. Despite a stalemate that has settled in for months, both sides still believe they can win the war and have placed impossible conditions for negotiations.

 

The international community has been unable – and some say, unwilling – to intervene sufficiently to tip the balance in favor of either the Assad regime or the rebels.

 

“There is no military solution to Syria,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the United Nations. “There is only a political solution, and that will require leadership in order to bring people to the table.”

 

He spoke ahead of talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said the death toll had risen from nearly 93,000 just over a month ago to more than 100,000. Opposition groups had announced the toll a month ago.

 

Ban called on the Syrian government and opposition to halt the violence, saying it is “imperative to have a peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible.”

 

The U.S. and Russia, along with the United Nations, are working to convene a conference to try to agree on a transitional government based on a plan adopted in Geneva a year ago.

 

No official date has been set because the opposition refuses to attend any talks that are not about Assad’s departure. Syrian government officials say participation in the conference should be without preconditions, but add that Assad’s departure before his term expires in 2014 is not negotiable.

 

Kerry said he talked to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Wednesday and both countries remained committed to bringing the warring parties together to further peace efforts.

 

“We will try our hardest to make that happen as soon as is possible,” Kerry said.

 

But the comments at the U.N. appeared at odds with what was happening inside Syria.

 

A U.S. decision to start sending arms to the rebels has further dimmed peace prospects.

 

The Syrian government criticized the U.S. actions, saying Washington was unsuitable to act as a broker at any peace negotiations.

 

The U.S. government opposed providing any lethal assistance to Syria’s rebels until last month but is moving ahead now with sending weapons to vetted rebels after securing the approval of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.President Barack Obama and his national security team have yet to say publicly what weapons they’ll provide and when they’ll deliver them. There has also been concern in the West that U.S. weapons could end up in the hands of AlQaeda-linked groups.

 

The Syrian government meanwhile has gone on the offensive and has succeeded, with the help of Hezbollah militants, in pushing back rebels near Damascus and in central Homs province.

 

Even as Kerry spoke, Syrian government troops, backed by Hezbollah, were renewing their bombardment of Homs Thursday, trying to storm the rebel-held neighborhood of Khaldieh, activists reported.

 

The Observatory said regime forces were preparing for a ground assault, but had no immediate word on casualties. Syrian state media meanwhile quoted an unnamed official saying army units had made “considerable headway” in Khaldieh, going beyond the previously unreached buildings to the eastern side of the neighborhood.

 

The rebels meanwhile are lashing out with stepped up mortar attacks on Damascus and car bombs targeting regime strongholds and security installations.

 

Thursday’s car bomb exploded in Jaramana, a suburb just few kilometers southeast of Damascus that is mostly pro-regime.

 

The state news agency SANA reported the blast caused heavy damage to nearby buildings and destroyed many cars. TV footage showed mangled cars and heavily damaged residential buildings. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Britain-based Observatory initially put the death toll at 10 but later raised it to 17, saying several of the wounded had died.

 

Late Wednesday opposition sources also said at least 15 Palestinians, mostly women and children were killed when forces loyal to Assad killed launched a rocket attack on the rebel-held Yarmouk refugee camp on the southern edge of Damascus.

 

Palestinian militia from the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as well as Syrian army and intelligence troops have been surrounding the camp for months.