TWO BOMBS EXPLODED NEAR SYRIAN MILITARY OFFICE IN CENTRAL DAMASCUS

TWO BOMBS EXPLODED NEAR SYRIAN MILITARY OFFICE IN CENTRAL DAMASCUS

Two bombs exploded near the Syrian military’s joint chiefs of staff’s offices in central Damascus on Sunday,2^nd September,2012, lightly wounding four Army officers and causing damage to a building and cars, state television said. The twin blasts in the posh Abu Rummaneh district of the Syrian capital were the latest in a wave of bombings to hit Damascus in the recent month as clashes between government troops and rebels reached the tightly controlled capital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s bombings, which Syrian government officials said appeared to target a building under construction near the offices of the joint chiefs of staff. The building, which is officially known as the Guards Battalion and was empty at the time of the blast, serves as a base for army officers who guard the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices, which are located some 200 m away.

Several past bombings have targeted the security establishment in Damascus, most notably a July 2012 blast that killed four senior security officials, including the defense minister and President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law.The government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to brief the media, said the wounded on Sunday were Army officers and that they were hospitalised with unspecified “minor wounds” and later discharged.Footage broadcast on Syrian state TV broadcast showed a damaged building with debris strewn across the street. The blasts punched a hole in one of the building’s walls, and blew out the windshield and windows of an SUV parked nearby.Sunday’s twin bombing was the second in recent weeks to hit Abu Rummaneh. On August 15, 2012 a bomb attached to a fuel truck exploded outside the Dama Rose hotel where U.N. observers stayed before ending their mission to Syria. That blast, which hit a military compound parking lot, wounded three people.Late Saturday, a car bomb near a Palestinian refugee camp in a suburb of Damascus killed at least 15 people, according to Syria’s state news agency. SANA said Sunday the explosion in the suburb of al-Sbeineh also wounded several people and caused heavy damage to buildings in the area.It blamed the blast on an “armed terrorist group,” the term it uses to describe the rebel Free Syrian Army seeking to topple Mr. Assad, but did not provide further details. Damascus blasts, Syria uprising, Bashar Assad regime, Free Syrian Army

Prof. John Kurakar