An explosion from a car bomb tore through central Damascus on Monday, the government said, killing 15 people in a blast that rattled windows, spread chaos and sent billows of dark smoke over an area that had been packed with people forming lines at banks, insurance companies and cellphone outlets.
As ambulances pushed through the crowd, hundreds of people streamed away, and others called relatives to check whether they had been close to the explosion. State television, which also said 54 people were wounded, showed upturned cars blackened by the blast as smoke blotted out the sky in the vicinity of the explosion. Fire crews sprayed jets of water onto nearby high-rise buildings, and at least one body was visible under the wreckage of a car.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which brought the country’s two-year-old revolt close to the heart of the city.
The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the gates of the Central Bank’s parking lot, destroying an outer structure and shattering windows of two large office buildings. Inside one of the buildings, people peered down from a glassless window at mangled, blackened cars, destroyed shops across the street and swarming emergency workers.
“People were just sitting here working and doing their daily life, and suddenly this happened,” said a man whose curtain shop had its windows blown out.
A taxi driver said he had seen a minibus, similar to the kind usually used to transport employees, go through the checkpoint and into the parking lot where it exploded.
A mosque and a building housing primary and technical schools and at least one apartment were across the street from where the bomb exploded. The building had gaping holes that framed the wreckage. On the ground floor, a school office had curtains and glass splayed across desks, and a television was on, broadcasting footage of the smoke and chaos that could also be seen out the window. A picture of the Syrian president hung above the television.
One woman, a teacher named Hanaa who worked at the technical school, was crying as she picked her way through the rubble with wounded hands. Along with students, she had been inside the school when the bomb exploded, and a door frame fell on her.
“This is America, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, they are funding those people to do those explosions!” a man who was with her shouted at journalists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, put the death toll at 16 and said the explosion had been caused by a booby-trapped car.
As early details emerged, SANA, the state news agency, quoted a reporter as saying that “terrorists blew up a booby-trapped car in a crowded area near a school and a hospital, claiming the lives of many people and injuring others.”
That observation was reflected in the chaos on the streets as rescue efforts continued and people searched for loved ones. A woman in a pink hijab hurried away from the area, a phone pressed to her ear. “My daughter was in school, and they attacked the school, may God take them,” she said. An older man in a suit said into his telephone, “Cars went flying.”
Amer, a Syrian Red Crescent worker, said he saw three charred bodies as he removed a wounded person. A woman approached him, crying: “My daughter was inside. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”
The bombing followed claims by the authorities that they had cleared the eastern Ghouta area close to Damascus of rebels who are fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The blast came a day after the beleaguered government forces sought to push back against insurgents in many parts of the country, according to opposition activists.
Reuters quoted a resident, who spoke in return for anonymity, as saying that the bomb had been planted despite the presence of six government checkpoints that were supposed to guarantee security in the area.
Fighting intensified in and around Aleppo, the country’s largest city, after government forces regained control of Aziza, a village near the city’s military airport, following weeks of clashes, reports said on Sunday.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the rebels in the village ran out of ammunition and were forced to withdraw. The village sits on high ground commanding the road between the military airport and the city.
Syrian warplanes hit Aleppo in the north, Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and other locations in an apparent effort to counter recent territorial gains by the rebels, the activists said.
In The Hague, meanwhile, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said all serious claims about any use of chemical weapons should be investigated, news reports said.
“The use of chemical weapons by any side, under any circumstances, would constitute an outrageous crime with dire consequences and constitute a crime against humanity,” Mr. Ban told delegates to a chemical weapons conference on Monday.
The extent of any inquiry has fueled differences between Western countries supporting the rebels and Russia, Mr. Assad’s main overseas backer.
While Russia wants an inquiry to focus on Syrian government claims that the insurgents used chemical weapons near Aleppo, France and Britain also want inquiries into rebel assertions that government forces used chemical weapons in the central city of Homs and in Damascus.
Mr. Ban said an advance team of inspectors was in Cyprus, Reuters reported, able to deploy within 24 hours if the Syrian authorities offered access.
Source: NY Times
