Dozens die in Damascus car bombing

The car bombing was the deadliest attack inside Damascus in nine months and within hours, two other bombings and a mortar attack on the military compound followed.

While no one group has claimed responsibility, the attacks suggest that rebel fighters who have got bogged down in their attempts to storm the capital are resorting to guerrilla tactics to loosen Mr Assad’s grip on the capital.

In the southern town of Daraa, where Syria’s uprising began nearly two years ago, British-based activists said 18 people were killed in an air strike including eight rebel fighters, three medics, one woman and one young girl.

The day’s deadliest attack struck a main street on the edge of central Mazraa neighbourhood, near the headquarters of Mr Assad’s Baath party and the Russian Embassy, as well as a mosque, a hospital and a school.

TV footage of the blast site showed firemen dousing a flaming car with hoses and lifeless and dismembered bodies blown into the grass of a nearby park. The state news service, SANA, published photos showing a large crater in the middle of the rubble-strewn street and charred cars holding blackened bodies.

Witnesses said a car exploded at a security checkpoint between the Russian Embassy and the central headquarters of Assad’s ruling party.

“It was huge. Everything in the shop turned upside down,” one local resident said. He said three of his employees were injured by flying glass that killed a young girl who was walking by when the blast hit.

“I pulled her inside the shop but she was almost gone. We couldn’t save her. She was hit in the stomach and head,” he said.

Ambulances rushed to the scene of the blast, which shattered windows and sent up a huge cloud of smoke visible throughout much of the city, witnesses said.

State TV called it a “terrorist” attack by a suicide bomber. It said at least 53 people were killed and more than 200 wounded.

The Britain-based activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 42 people were killed, most of them civilians. Some members of the Syrian security forces were also killed, it said.

There was no way to immediately reconcile the differing death tolls.

The bombing appeared to be the second most deadly in the Syrian capital since the uprising against Assad began 23 months ago. Fifty-five people were killed in the first, a double suicide bombing outside an intelligence building in May, 2012.

The most extreme of Syria’s rebel groups, Jabhat al-Nusra, claimed responsibility for that and other bombings that have struck targets associated with the regime but also killed civilians.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for today’s attack.

Russia’s state owned RIA Novosti news agency quoted a Russian Embassy official as saying the Embassy building had been damaged in the blast but no one was hurt.

Among those wounded by flying glass was Nayef Hawatmeh, the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical Damascus-based Palestinian group. He was taken to hospital and later released.

In a separate attack, Syrian state TV said mortar shells exploded near the Syrian Army General Command in central Damascus, causing no casualties. The station said the building was empty because it was under renovation.

The Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two mortar rounds struck near the building but did not report casualties.

Yesterday, two mortar shells exploded next to a soccer stadium in Damascus, killing one player. The day before, two mortar shells blew up near one of Mr Assad’s three palaces in the city, causing only material damage.

Between the car bomb and the mortar attack near the army command, a security official reported another blast in the capital’s north-eastern Barzeh neighbourhood.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of anti-regime activists inside Syria, said two car bombs had exploded near security centres in Barzeh, followed by intense clashes between rebels and security forces.

Syrian state media also reported that security forces in Damascus had arrested a second, would-be suicide bomber driving a car full of explosives near the site of the Mazraa bombing.

Damascus has so far mostly avoided the large-scale violence that has destroyed other Syrian cities, though deadly car bombings have targeted government buildings in the capital.

In May 2012, twin car bombs exploded outside a military intelligence building, killing 55 people in the deadliest attack against a regime target in the capital since the uprising began 23 months ago.

Today, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said his message to Mr Assad is that “it is time to go.”

He said the senseless killing must be brought to an end through a credible political process leading to a transition in Syria.

He also called on Mr Assad to respond to a dialogue offer made recently by Syrian opposition chief Mouaz al-Khatib.

“A political settlement, a political agreement on a transition is the way forward in Syria to bring to an end this terrible and unacceptable loss of life.”