BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won’t step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country’s politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war.

In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area.