At least 50 people died and 100 were wounded in Damascus on Friday after two suicide bombers blew up their cars near security offices in the Syrian capital. "Most of the casualties were civilians and military personnel," a Syrian official told dpa, adding that a majority of the 100 wounded were listed in critical condition.
Syrian state television showed medics wrapping bodies in blankets, smoke rising from the blackened buildings and the charred remains of the two cars. This was the first major attack in Damascus since the start of the 10-month uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. Residents of Kfar Sousa, which is a highly secured area because it houses buildings of the Syrian intelligence, told dpa that their apartments shook and windows were shattered. "I was sitting in my living room when the whole glass fell on me and my daughter. Luckily we escaped with minor wounds," a resident of Kfar Sousa, who asked not to be named, told dpa by phone. "The area is covered with burnt cars, blood and human flesh," she said. Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, said the twin blasts were carried out by "terrorist gangs," state television reported.
"We said this from the beginning," Mekdad told reporters, as he accompanied a team of Arab League observers to the site of the blasts, which targeted security and intelligence headquarters. A few minutes after the explosions, state television announced that preliminary investigations had found the attacks bore the "blueprint" of al Qaeda. Security forces closed major roads leading to the area where the blasts occurred, and arrested several people, sources in Damascus told dpa by phone.
Last month, the Free Syrian Army, a group of army defectors who joined the opposition, said its forces attacked an air intelligence barracks. The commander of the group, Riad al-Asaad, strongly condemned Friday's attacks and said "we have no links with such brutal attacks in which mainly civilians were killed." Syrian activist Omar Idlibi said: "We have our doubts about these explosion, the area is a highly secured region and anyone who enters is monitored by the regime's security forces." On social networking websites, pro-democracy activists were already accusing the government of being behind the blasts, with the intent of preventing the Arab League observers from beginning their mission to end the months-long unrest in the country.