adminIntense fighting between the opposition and government forces is raging in a half-dozen areas of the Syrian capital Damascus, the day after a bomb struck at the heart of Syria’s senior command, killing at least three of President Bashar al-Assad’s top brass.
Columns of black smoke rose over Damascus yesterday as troops shelled Qaboon and Barzeh, while fighting raged in al-Midan and Zahira and loud explosions were heard in Mashrou-Dumar, said the Syrian Local Coordination Committees.
Violence also erupted in Ikhlas neighbourhood near the government headquarters after rebels attacked forces loyal to Assad, who have deployed armoured vehicles, attack helicopters and increased roadblocks across the city.
Rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in the Jdeidet Artouz area, killing at least five officers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as the chief UN observer warned that Syria was not “on the track for peace”.
Maj Gen Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of nearly 300 observers sent to the country to monitor a cease-fire that never took effect, said the mission was not working.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said many people believed the latest developments had led the Syrian conflict to a turning point.
“The Damascus fighting is now in its fifth day, getting close to power base of the Syrian president,” our correspondent said.
“The prestige of the regime has been shattered. Losing control of Damascus means the regime is slowly losing its grip over the country.”
Wednesday’s attack, the first to target Assad’s inner circle since a 16-month uprising erupted, came ahead of a Western showdown yesterday with Russia and China over a draft UN resolution calling for sanctions.
The explosion was blamed on a bodyguard attending a meeting of security chiefs at their headquarters, prompting the White House to say Assad was “losing control” of Syria.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon and inter-national envoy Kofi Annan called on the Security Council to take action, ahead of the vote on the western-backed resolution which Russia and China are expected to veto.
Ban said there was an “extreme urgency” for action to make government and opposition forces halt the violence, which activists say has killed more than 17 000 people since March last year.
The current 90-day UN mission in Syria ends today, and if no resolution is passed, it would have to shut down this weekend, diplomats say.
More than 200 people, mostly civilians, were killed on Wednesday, including 38 in Damascus, where rebels are pressing an all-out offensive, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Wednesday’s bombing killed Defence Minister General Daoud Rajha, Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and General Hassan Turkmani, head of the regime’s crisis cell on the uprising, state media said.
Among those wounded were Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar and General Hisham Ikhtiyar, head of National Security.
Conflicting accounts have emerged of who carried out the attack on Wednesday and how it was perpetrated. Syrian state media did not air any images of the blast, as in previous explosions that hit Damascus in the last two months. — — Al Jazeera.
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