Suicide bombing kills top Syrian officials

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Friday July 20, 2012 00:33 by pat c

Bill Van Auken reports on the suicide bombing in Damascus which killed leading members of Assads Cabinet. The bombing may have been carried out by fundamentalists but it was inspired by Israel or the US. Full text at link.

A suicide bomber's attack on a meeting of cabinet ministers and senior security officials claimed the lives of at least three senior members of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday.

Syrian state media confirmed Wednesday that Defense Minister Dawould Rajha, his deputy, Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of the president, and Hasan Turkmani, Assad's security adviser, were killed in the morning blast, which occurred during a top-level meeting held in the tightly secured National Security Building in the Rawda district of central Damascus

Syria's interior minister, Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, initially reported as among those critically wounded in the suicide attack, was said to have also died, according to Hezbollah's television station and other sources.

An Islamist group, Liwa al-Isla, first claimed responsibility for the bombing, which Syrian officials said was carried out by a bodyguard. Later, the Free Syrian Army issued a statement claiming that the blast was part of its offensive in Damascus.

The use of suicide bombings, including previous attacks such as the May 10 twin suicide car bombings that killed 55 people outside a Damascus military intelligence building, point to the growing role of Al Qaeda-connected militants who have flocked to Syria from elsewhere in the Middle East.

The terrorist attack on the heart of the Assad regime occurred as fighting raged on for a fourth day in the Syrian capital. Since Sunday, Damascus, which had previously been spared the armed conflict engulfing other parts of the country, has seen sustained exchanges of gunfire involving the use of tanks, artillery and rocket-propelled grenades.