Bombings, clashes and air strikes shook Syria yesterday as British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would back giving safe passage to President Bashar al-Assad if it meant ending the country’s bloodshed.

In the latest in a wave of bomb attacks, at least 10 civilians were killed and 40 wounded as three blasts hit the west Damascus suburb of Qudsaya yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

As fighting elsewhere claimed more lives, Cameron told Al-Arabiya television that he wanted Assad to be held to account for his crimes but that his departure could be arranged.

Asked what he would say if Assad asked for a safe exit, Cameron, who is on a tour of the Middle East, told the UAE-based channel: “Done. Anything, anything to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria.

“Of course, I would favour him facing the full force of international law and justice for what he’s done. I am certainly not offering him an exit plan to Britain but if wants to leave, he could leave. That could be arranged.”

The Observatory said at least 131 people had been killed nationwide yesterday, as air strikes hit targets around the country and fighting raged around Damascus, in the second city Aleppo, and in the northwestern Idlib province, where rebel forces killed at least 12 troops in an ambush.

An Israeli patrol was hit by gunfire in the buffer zone between the two countries in the Golan Heights on Monday, and UN ambassador Ron Prosor said his country was viewing heightened tensions with Syria with the “utmost concern”.

At the United Nations, British envoy Mark Lyall Grant said Western governments were pressing UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi for swift UN Security Council action to try to stop the violence.

Lyall Grant told reporters that the Security Council hoped for a briefing from Brahimi before the end of the month on his efforts to start political talks.