Syrian conflict: Deadly bomb attack kills Assad’s valuable family members.
July 19, Damascus: Three senior Syrian officials, including the brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, were killed yesterday in an attack that targeted the heart of the security center in Damascus.
The attack, which struck the first ministers since the beginning of the revolt in March 2011, was claimed by the Syrian free Army(ASL, composed mostly of deserters) who announced the day before “the battle for the liberation of Damascus “, as fighting raged in the capital.
The attack occurred a few hours before voting in the Security Council on a UN resolution threatening sanctions to Syria, which Moscow opposes. Germany and Britain have found that the attack made all the more urgent the need to vote for this resolution.
“The Deputy Defence Minister, General Assef Shawkat, was killed in terrorist attack that targeted the building of National Security in Damascus,” said Syrian television. This building located in the city center is the symbol of the repression of the revolt.
The Defence Minister, General Daoud Rajha, was also killed in the attack, according to television. And General Hassan Turkmani, head of the crisis unit set up to quell the revolt, has died of his injuries, according to Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH).
The attack also injured the Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, the head of National Security, Hisham Ikhtiar, said a source within the security services.
She said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber with a belt of explosives at a meeting of ministers and security officials.
According the same source, the bomber was “a bodyguard of one of meeting participants.”
ASL claimed the operation without giving details on its implementation. She says it was “the first of a series of major operations to bring down Assad and all the pillars and symbols of the regime, whether military or civilian.”
The rebels reiterated that those “who do not have blood on their hands” had until the end of July for defecting, if not otherwise be considered, the statement said, as “accomplices in the murders Assad “.
The Army announced on his side that act as “terrorist” reinforced “the determination of the armed forces to clean the home of the remains of the terrorist gangs.”
Since the beginning of the revolt, the authorities described the rebels as “terrorists”, they claim helped by foreign countries.
Meanwhile, the regime quickly acted by appointing a new Defence Minister, General Fahd al-Freij, hitherto Chief of Staff.
For the OSDH, the death of General Assef Shawkat is a “severe blow to the Syrian regime as it assumed the leading role in the operations of regular forces to crush the revolution.”
The regime had already suffered a blow early July with the announcement of the unprecedented defection of a high-ranking army officer, close to the Assad family and childhood friend of the head of state, General Manaf Tlass . The rebels had announced Tuesday it had launched the “battle for the liberation” of Damascus.
Meanwhile, clashes between the army and the SLA took place in the neighborhoods and Midane Kafar Sousse in the south and west of Damascus, according to OSDH.
The fighting, the most violent in the capital since March 2011, began Sunday evening in several suburbs.
More than sixty regular soldiers were killed in the last 48 hours in Damascus in the clashes with the rebels, said the OSDH.
Nearly 100 people were killed yesterday in Syria, including 16 in Damascus where fighting has reached an unprecedented violence while three senior security officials were killed in an attack. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), 46 civilians, 43 soldiers and eight rebels were killed in violence across the country.
News Gathered by India News
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