An attack by Syrian fighter jets kills at least 25 in a Damascus mosque, opposition activists say, hours after the deputy foreign minister tells Channel 4 News the government is not targeting civilians. Warning: This report contains some distressing images.By NBC News wire servicesBEIRUT -- Syria's longtime vice president said Sunday that his regime and the rebels are both going down a losing path after 21 months of civil war, a rare admission by a top government official that President Bashar Assad's victory is unlikely.(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/121216-syria-farouk-130a.380;380;7;70;0.jpg)Martyn Hayhow / AFP - Getty Images, fileSyrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara'a, pictured in this Oct. 18, 2004 file photo of a press conference in London.The comments by Farouk al-Sharaa came as an Islamist faction of Syrian rebels captured an infantry base in the northern city of Aleppo, and Syrian warplanes blasted a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, killing eight people and wounding dozens, activists said.
Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power structure dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, has rarely appeared in public since the revolt erupted in March 2011.
Al-Sharaa told the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that neither the rebels nor the Assad regime can "decide the battle militarily." It appeared to be an attempt to show that the rebels are not the solution to the Syria conflict, and their victory might bring chaos to the country.
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