DAMASCUS — Two suicide bombs Wednesday struck the heavily guarded Syrian army headquarters in the heart of Damascus, killing four guards and sparking a gun battle between troops and rebels, state media said. A rebel officer and a rights group said the audacious attack which also left 14 people wounded was an inside job, while an Islamist rebel group said five of its fighters including a suicide bomber died in carrying out the assault. The rebels said the assault on President Bashar Al-Assad's power base in the center of the capital killed dozens of people. The spectacular assault on the army's operations command center came as the worsening bloodshed, which left at least 217 dead Tuesday, dominated proceedings at the UN General Assembly in New York. “Armed terrorist groups with affiliations abroad this morning carried out a new act of terrorism by detonating a car bomb and another device on the edge of the general staff compound,” an army statement said. “All senior commanders and other officers are safe and sound, and none of them was wounded,” the statement carried by state media said. But state television citing a military official said four troops guarding the headquarters were killed, and 14 civilians and soldiers injured. The broadcaster showed video footage of a white van exploding on the roadside next to the building housing the headquarters, and a second blast inside the compound. It said the bombings were 10 minutes apart. “The initial investigation shows that these terrorist explosions around and inside the army headquarters were caused by two car bombs driven by suicide attackers,” the military official said. President Assad's regime has systematically blamed unrest and violence on foreign-backed terrorist gangs ever since the revolt erupted in March 2011. The rebel Free Syrian Army's Military Council in Damascus said on its Facebook page that “the Free Syrian Army has struck the military headquarters in Damascus's Umayyad Square.” A rebel officer and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was an inside job, while a rebel group said its men carried out the attack. The claims were impossible to verify. “The operation was carried out by several Free Syrian Army battalions working with an officer and his troops on the inside,” said Ahmed Al-Khatib, spokesman for the FSA's Military Council in Damascus. The explosions struck as world leaders met at the United Nations, where deadlock over Syria has blocked a united global response to a conflict which activists say has killed 30,000 people, forced a quarter of a million refugees to flee the country and left 2.5 million people in need of help. In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin rebutted calls for an intervention. Any attempt to unilaterally use force or interfere with events in the Middle East would be counter-productive, he said. Activists said security forces killed more than 40 people in a town outside Damascus on Thursday, calling it a massacre. Video published by activists showed rows of bloodied corpses wrapped in blankets in the town of Dhiyabia. The victims appeared to be male, from 20-year-olds to elderly men. — Agencies
