Then, the driver of a four-wheel drive vehicle rammed the latter into the building of the General Security Directorate (the loathed, repressive Syrian secret service), when guards inside ran into the street after hearing the first blast, according to a state-owned Syrian channel, al-lkhbariya al -Suriya.
The explosions shook the house. It was frightful, Nidal Hamidi, a journalist residing in Kafr Sousa, told AP.
Gunfire was also heard in the Malki district, in central Damascus.
Initial reports indicated that 40 people had been killed in the blasts, and over 100 injured.
Several soldiers and a large number of civilians were killed in the two attacks carried out by suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives against bases of State Security and another branch of the security services, state television reported.
Initial inquiries hold al-Qaeda responsibility, the network added.
Some reports indicated that a suspect had been arrested.
The Assad regime has been claiming from the outset of the uprising that it is not being challenged by peaceful pro-democracy activists, but by terrorists and armed gangs supported by foreigners.
Today’s attacks did seem to confirm this thesis.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the Arab observers to vindicate his government’s contention that the unrest is the work of « armed terrorists», not overwhelmingly peaceful protesters as maintained by Western governments and human rights watchdogs, wrote AFP.
Yet, the nature and timing of the attacks fuels suspicion that the Assad regime may itself have instigated them.
A terrorist attack conducted by al-Qaeda (already identified as the culprit in its immediate aftermath) neatly corroborated the Assad’ regime’s allegation that it is being targeted by the most formidable of Islamic terrorist organizations.
Secondly, the attacks took place the day after the arrival of a delegation of Arab League logistics experts. They are in Damascus to organize the mission of the hundreds of monitors expected as soon as Sunday to ascertain Syrian compliance with the Arab League peace plan that Assad signed in early November.
One article stipulates that the regime must cease resorting to violent means.
The authorities will undoubtedly (and expeditiously) provide the delegates with all the necessary evidence to confirm that its allegations concerning the origin of the violence were indeed accurate and thus always had been…The delegation was taken to a blast site this afternoon, according to The Guardian...
The regime will thus be in a position to demand sufficient leeway from the Arab League to confront this terrorist menace accordingly.
Furthermore, Damascus has been virtually spared the violence wracking other parts of the country.
In addition, no attacks of this nature, suicide bomb attacks, have been launched by the resistance movements, not even by armed groups.
Other elements also suggest the Assad regime was complicit in the attacks.
Omar al-Khani, of the Syrian Revolution General Commission opposition group, said that he lived three miles from the site of the explosions. Although the blasts rattled the windows of his house and woke him up with the noise, he said, he did not see any smoke rising from the area.
Khani said residents of Kafr Sousa reported that intelligence agents stationed near the building did not move when the explosions detonated. Instead, they continued to drink tea. Snipers and guards at the building also did nothing, he said, wrote Alice Fordham of the WP.
Half an hour before the bombing took place, there was a significantly high security presence. One side of the road was cut off 10 minutes before the explosion itself. As soon as the road was opened an explosion was heard, and then another one followed about 5 minutes later, a witness declared, according to enduringamerica.
Syria doesn’t really have a record of this. The security forces have not lost control of the situation to such an extent that this would seem likely, Salman Shaikh, of the Brookings Institute in Doha, told Alice Fordham.
The blasts occurred hours before a demonstration called to protest the Arab League mission was to have taken place.
On their Facebook page, activists condemned the Arab League’s plan to send monitors, fearing their presence will only legitimize the killing of protesters by the regime.
Protocol of death, license to kill was one slogan featuring on the page, according to al-Jazeera.
The activists demand that the United Nations Security Council, and not the Arab League, lead the international campaign against the Assad regime.
Omar Edelbi, of the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition movement inside Syria, denounced the Arab League mission as another attempt by the regime to bypass the Arab initiative and empty it of its contents, according to al-Jazeera.
The pro-democracy activists fear that the Assad regime will do its utmost to prevent the monitors from effectively fulfilling their mission (and first and foremost monitoring an end to the violence) all the while postponing the involvement of the UN Security Council.
In short, Assad will simply try to buy enough time to crush the uprising…
Skeptics also emphasize the fact that the full list of monitors has not yet been set, nor has the exact contours of their mission been finalized.
Lastly, the areas to be monitored will be negotiated with the Assad government…
The man chosen to lead the mission moreover, the Sudanese General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi lacks the necessary credibility to pursue it successfully.
Indeed, he was the head of military intelligence in Darfur where, according to the ICC, Sudanese troops committed war crimes, including genocide!
The Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir was charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the ICC in 2008...
Is he truly the most suitable candidate to lead a mission the goal of which is the cessation of all violence?
In this context, it is quite possible that the Assad regime believes it can manipulate the monitors, if not obtain the tacit support of the mission’s leader, to continue its bloody repression of the Syrian uprising.
The Assad regime has repeatedly shown it will stop at nothing to retain power.
It has arrested, tortured shot and killed thousands of men, women and children…
More than 6,200 have died, including hundreds of children, according to a human rights organization.
As such, it is perfectly capable of having orchestrated these terrorist attacks in order to bolster its position before the arrival of the Arab League monitors.
These latest tragic events clearly demonstrate that Assad must go, and go now…
Who will help the Syrian people get rid of him?
(the photograph above of the Arab League delegation inspecting the blast site was found here)
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