10 May 2012 Damascus bombings;Syria: Damascus explosions

   10 May 2012 Damascus bombings;Syria: Damascus explosions;
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State media has blamed terrorists for two bomb attacks which are said to have killed at least 55 people and wounded 170 in Damascus. The bombings, which were largest to hit the capital since the uprising began, have shattered the already widely-flouted ceasefire. The bombs exploded on a ring road close to a government intelligence agency in the al-Qazaz district.

Fifty-five people were killed and 372 wounded in the attacks, according to the Syrian foreign affairs spokesman Jihad Makdissi, who appealed for people to donate blood. Describing it as possibly the "strongest and bloodiest" attack so far, he said two suicide bombers blew up cars containing more than 1,000kg of explosives. .

Videos posted online showed a plume of thick black smoke rising above Qazaz, in the south-west of the city. Syrian TV showed graphic pictures of burnt corpses and body parts on the ground, as well as gutted vehicles. People worked to free bodies from the wreckage of vehicles and to extinguish blazes.

The UN-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan called for a halt to the violence, and urged compliance from both sides with the 12 April ceasefire that he brokered.

"These abhorrent acts are unacceptable and the violence in Syria must stop," he said.

"Any action that serves to escalate tensions and raise the level of violence can only be counter-productive to the interests of all parties."

A source in Damascus told the Guardian that both of the explosions occurred close to the university's faculty of mechanical engineering where students were arriving for lessons.

"They were very large explosions," he said. "They could be heard from far away. People couldn't believe that this happened ... There are ambulances rushing to the area."

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the target was the intelligence buildings.

The outer wall of the nearby Palestine Branch Military Intelligence complex collapsed, although the structure inside appeared intact.

Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the attacks: “Yet again it is the people of Syria who are suffering as a result of the repression and violence, which must come to an end.

“As Kofi Annan made clear to the UN Security Council earlier this week, the onus is on the Syrian authorities to implement a full ceasefire and begin the political dialogue required by the Annan Plan.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 849 people – 628 civilians and 221 soldiers, of whom 31 were defectors – had been killed since the April 12 ceasefire. The count did not include Thursday’s deaths.

Channel 4 News’ Foreign Correspondent Jonathan Rugman writes:“Not much is known about the group most likely responsible for today’s attacks, writes Foreign Correspondent Jonathan Rugman. Its name is the Support Front for the People of Syria – or Jabhat al-Nusra li-Ahl al-Sham.

In the group’s first jihadist video, released on January 23, you can see men posing with pistols and kalashnikovs claiming to be the ‘sword of the Islamic nation’. They look remarkably similar to the jihadist fighters who fought against the American-led occupation of Iraq, though their goal is an Islamic state to replace the regime of Presdient Bashar al-Assad.

Another video, released in February, apparently contains the voice of the group’s leader Abu Mohamed Al Julani. He claims responsibility for an attack on another intelligence building, this time in Aleppo, where 28 people died. “We hope the regime tasted some of the pain they caused the children of Homs,” he says.

On 30 September Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya news claimed to have proof that the government were behind the attacks. They cited "classified government documents that had been acquired through the Syrian opposition". The documents allegedly indicate the purpose of the attack was to discredit the opposition and convince the international community that terrorists were active in the country. According to the Al Arabiya, Maj. Gen. Dhu al-Himma Shalish, head of presidential security, ordered Colonel Suhail Hassan of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate to carry out the bombing citing direct orders from the president.^[14] Al Arabiya has been determined to be an unreliable source with an agenda.