On Friday afternoon and evening, Friday protests continued in Syria, according to al-Hayat writing in Arabic. The opposition maintains that the Syrian army killed some 25 of the protesters on Friday around the country, who were demanding that the ruling Baath Party relinquish power. The hot spots are by now familiar– Homs, Hama, Deraa, and the outskirts of Damascus.
Two suicide bombers had detonated car bombs on Friday morning in downtown Damascus, killing some 44 persons and wounding 150– according to al-Hayah writing in Arabic. The bombers appeared to have been targeting Syrian domestic intelligence buildings, but many civilians were among the casualties. This sort of massive, targeted violence has been rare since popular protests began in Syria last spring, though military convoys have sometimes been targeted by defectors.
Aljazeera English has a video report:
The regime accused “al-Qaeda” of being behind the bombings, but it is not clear what that could even mean in a Syrian context.
France declined to speculate on the origins of the attacks, but it did complain that the Syrian state had transferred political prisoners to other prisons, as a means of fooling the Arab League monitors expected shortly to arrive in the country
The Syrian National Council, leaders of the current civilian uprising, denied being involved in the bombing, saying that they only have small arms and lack both the ability and the desire to pull off such massive bombings.
Many in the Syrian opposition alleged that the Baathist government of Syria had bombed itself in a false flag operation aimed at discrediting the uprising against the rule of Bashar al-Assad.
The Lebanese Shiite party-militia, Hizbullah (Hezbollah), which strongly supports the government of Bashar al-Asad, accused the United States of being behind the bombings.
Te Americans are certainly capable of such bombings, as we know their having tried to blow up Ayatollah Fadlallah with a car bomb in 1985. But this would make no sense, since it did little to shake the Syrian regime and indeed delighted it, by enabling them to portray the opposition as all that they have accused them of. So I think it’s absurd to blame the Americans.
It’s easy to go wrong by underestimating human stupidity, so for some opposition figures to have done this is possible.
It suits the Syrian regime’s purposes, but wouldn’t have been easier to use a straightforward car bomb than to find willing suicide bombers?
And, finally, it’s a very Iraqi thing to do nowadays. What if the people blowing up things in Baghdad thought it good to attack Maliki’s friends in Damascus? Or maybe Assad’s frineds in Baghdad decided to do him a favor to besmirch the opposition.
Complicated world we live in.
Is this still an “Arab spring”? It sure looks like what started as popular protests is now used to advance an American / Zionist agenda and to remove all rulers and regimes which are not friendly to Israel / US. It’s hard not to notice the hidden hand.
The blueprint was laid long time ago in A Clean Break, a policy paper written by powerful policy makers, supporters of Netanyahu in the United States. Among their goals: regime change in Iraq, the destabilization of Syria which will enable the isolation of Iran and Hizballah and the removal of Gaddafi to a lesser extent. Iran is also slated for a regime change or outright destruction.
The main tools used are Al Jazeera and covert arming and training of insurgent / terrorist groups by the CIA in order to destabilize unfriendly regimes.
Notice that in “friendly” countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there are no civil wars. Not because they are better or more peaceful but because there is nobody fomenting civil strife.
The Ameicans and Israelis no doubt work to further their interests, but they are not in control of world events. The regime change in Iraq did not install a regime friendly to the US. Throughout the region, Muslims are gaining political power, and this is making Israel nervous. Egypt was vey friendly with the US a year ago. Why did the CIA cause unrest there? Wasn’t the Tunisian regime friendly? I would think that seeing the hidden hand of the US and Israel behind everything does take some effort. It is definitely an insult to those who’ve gone out and faced the tyrants’ bullets.
Oh yes, add to my previous comment: the Western press of course is another tool: always keen on publishing unverified, well planted “atrocity stories” in unfriendly regimes, becomes part of the propaganda war. Notice that there are never “kidnapped / mutilated / tortured / female / gay bloggers” in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Yemen.
Speaking of Yemen, did you know that before the protest began there, Saleh was allowing the US to conduct drone strikes? When the uprising began there, the US military expressed concern that the instability would make things easier for the al-Queda offshoot they were targeting.
I read this morning that the “Syrian Muslim Brotherhood” was claiming responsibility for the bombings. Also it was said that only Government employees were the victims, not civilians. Needless to say, it’s one of the terrorist groups fighting there in Syria today, most likely linked to the C.I.A./Israeli/U.K. band of mercenaries.