Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki survived a bomb attack on his convoy in Damascus on Monday, state media and activists said, as rebels struck in the heart of President Bashar al-Assad's capital. Six people were killed in the blast, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, the latest in a series of rebel attacks on government targets including a December bombing which wounded Assad's interior minister.
Halki wields little power but the attack highlighted the rebels' growing ability to target symbols of Assad's authority in a civil war which has cost more than 70,000 lives, according to the United Nations. Assad picked Halki in August to replace Riyadh Hijab, who defected and escaped to neighbouring Jordan just weeks after a Damascus bombing which killed four of the president's top security advisers. In comments released by the state news agency SANA but not shown on television, Halki was quoted as condemning the attack as a sign of "bankruptcy and failure of the terrorist groups", a reference to the rebels battling to overthrow Assad.
The blast shook the Mezze district soon after 9 am (0600 GMT) and sent thick black smoke into the sky. The Observatory said one man accompanying Halki was killed as well as five passers-by. State television showed firemen hosing down the charred and mangled remains of a car. Close by was a large white bus, its windows blown out and its seats gutted by fire. Glass and debris were scattered across several lanes of a main road. "The terrorist explosion in al-Mezze was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister. Doctor Wael al-Halki is well and not hurt at all," state television said.
It later broadcast footage of Halki, who appeared composed and unruffled, chairing what it said was an economic committee. Mezze is part of a shrinking "Square of Security" in central Damascus, where many government and military institutions are based and where senior Syrian officials live. Sheltered for nearly two years from the bloodshed and destruction ravaging much of the rest of Syria, it has been slowly sucked into violence as rebel forces based to the east of the capital launch mortar attacks and carry out bombings in the centre.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS Assad has lost control of large areas of northern and eastern Syria, faces a growing challenge in the southern province of Deraa, and is battling rebels in many cities. But his forces have been waging powerful ground offensives, backed by artillery and air strikes, against rebel-held territory around the capital and near the central city of Homs which links Damascus to the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect in the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean.
As part of that counter-offensive, Assad's forces probably used chemical weapons, the United States said last week. Despite congressional pressure on President Barack Obama to do more to help the rebels, he has made clear he is in no rush to intervene on the basis of evidence he said was preliminary.
Russia, which has criticised Western and Gulf Arab support for the anti-Assad fighters, said that attempts by Western countries to expand a UN inquiry into chemical weapons in Syria amounted to a pretext to intervene in the civil war. "There is not always a basis for the allegations (of the use of chemical weapons)," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Monday after meeting the head of the African Union Commission.
"There are probably governments and a number of external players who believe that it is fine to use any means to overthrow the Syrian regime. But the theme of the use of weapons of mass destruction is too serious and we shouldn't joke about it. To take advantage of it (to advance) geopolitical goals is not acceptable." The United Nations said in February that around 70,000 people had been killed in Syria's conflict. Since then activists have reported daily death tolls of between 100 and 200.
Five million people have fled their homes, including 1.4 million refugees in nearby countries, and war losses are estimated at many tens of billions of dollars. The Beirut-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia estimates that 400,000 houses have been completely destroyed, 300,000 partially destroyed and a further half million have suffered some kind of structural damage.
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