Blast Kills Core Syrian Security Officials
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and DALAL MAWAD
Published: July 18, 2012
BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law and Syria’s
defense minister were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber
attacked a crisis group of senior ministers and security chiefs meeting
in central Damascus, according to state television and activists.
Left, Sana, via Reuters; right, Khaled Al-Hariri/Reuters
Daoud Rajha, left, Syria’s defense minister, and Asef
Shawkat, President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law, were killed on
Wednesday in a suicide bombing in Damascus. More Photos »
Multimedia
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Times Topic: Syria
Sana/European Pressphoto Agency
An undated photo released by Syria's state-run
television, showed Syria's defense minister, Daoud Rajha, center, with
army officers. More Photos »
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The assassinations were the first of such high-ranking members of the
power elite in the 17-month revolt against Mr. Assad’s rule, and could
represent a turning point in the conflict, analysts said. The nature and
target of the attack, they said, confirmed that opposition forces have
been marshaling their strength to strike at the close-knit centers of
state power.
President Assad’s whereabouts on Wednesday were not immediately clear.
According to state television, the dead included the defense minister,
Daoud Rajha, and Asef Shawkat, the president’s brother-in-law who was
the deputy chief of staff of the Syrian military. But the television
report rejected claims by activists that the minister of the interior
also was killed, saying he was in stable condition.
Opposition activists and Lebanese satellite channels reported later that
Hassan Turkumani, a former minister of defense and military adviser to
Vice President Farouk Sharaa, had died from injuries sustained in the
bombing.
General Rajha was appointed minister of defense in August. A Christian,
he was one of the prominent minority figures used by the Assad
government to put a face of pluralism on the military and security
services dominated by the president’s Alawite sect.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad
activist organization, said all the members of the crisis group set up
by President Assad to try to put down the revolt were are either dead or
injured. But there was no official confirmation of that account.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday morning, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta
said that situation in Syria "is rapidly spinning out of control" and
warned Mr. Assad’s government to safeguard its large stockpile of
chemical weapons. "It’s obvious what is happening in Syria is a real
escalation of the fighting," he said at a joint news conference with the
British defense minister, Philip Hammond.
The attack came as diplomatic maneuvers to seek a cease-fire remained
deadlocked by differences between Syria’s international adversaries and
its sponsors, principally Russia, ahead of a United Nations Security Council vote scheduled later on whether to extend the mission of 300 United Nations
monitors. The work of the unarmed observers has been suspended because
of the violence, and they have basically been trapped in their hotel
rooms since last month.
In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov, offering Russia’s
first official commentary on the bombing, said via his Twitter account
that the attack had put consensus between members of the Security
Council even farther out of reach.
“A dangerous logic: While discussions on settling the Syrian crisis are
being held in the U.N. Security Council, militants intensify terrorist
attacks, frustrating all attempts,” he wrote.
With tensions already high in Damascus after three days of clashes
between the Syrian Army and rebels near the city center, SANA, the
official news agency, described the assault as a “suicide terrorist
attack” without offering any explanation of how such an assault could
have been carried out in such heavily secured location. Opponents
claimed a major victory.
“The Syrian regime has started to collapse,” said the activist who heads
the Syrian Observatory, who goes by the pseudonym Rami Abdul-Rahman for
reasons of personal safety. “There was fighting for three days inside
Damascus, it was not just a gun battle, and now someone has killed or
injured all these important people.”
Rumors swirled around Damascus that the bomber was the minister’s
bodyguard, but there was no confirmation of those reports. The attack
came despite a huge security presence to isolate embattled neighborhoods
of the capital.
The casualties were from the core team trying to enforce a security
solution to the uprising in Syria, and in such a tense, suspicious
climate, it was not clear who Mr. Assad might find to replace them.
“If a bodyguard blew himself up, then there was a major internal
security breach,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese military officer
and a military analyst knowledgeable about Syria.
Giulio Piscitelli
A child was treated last week after a bombing in Qusayr, Syria. More Photos »
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Times Topic: Syria
Giulio Piscitelli
A bombing last month left the center of Qusayr in
rubble. Government forces erected a security cordon in areas of
Damascus. More Photos »
Shaam News Network, via Reuters
A frame from a video released by antigovernment
activists showed Syrian army troops in central Damascus on Monday.
More Photos »
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Share your thoughts.
“Who will replace these people?” Mr. Hanna said. “They are
irreplaceable at this stage, it’s hard to find loyal people now that
doubt is sowed everywhere. Whoever can get to Asef Shawkat can get to
Assad.”
“Everyone, even those close to the inner circle, will now be under suspicion,” he said.
The government moved rapidly to project an image of control, naming
Fahed Jassem al-Freij, the military chief of staff and a man once
assigned to subdue restive Idlib province in the north, as the new
minister of defense.
An Army statement quoted by state television said in part: “This
terrorist act will only increase our insistence to purge this country
from the criminal terrorist thugs and to protect the dignity of Syria
and its sovereignty.”
The information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, also went on a talk show to
reject claims by those calling it the beginning of the end.
“The morale of our people is very high and our armed forces are at their highest level,” he said.
Activists reached in Damascus said the city appeared deserted, aside
from the security cordon thrown up around the leafy, well-to-do
neighborhood where the explosion took place — just down the road from
the American ambassador’s residence, which has been vacant for months.
The area is dotted with embassies and government offices.
“All the stores and shops are closed,” said an activist in Damascus
reached via Skype. “Some people are scared and some are happy, you can
hear people firing off gunshots in many places.”
The injured from the explosion were evacuated to the Alshame hospital,
an elite medical facility used to treat the Assad family, ministers and
other senior officials. Security forces threw up a cordon around the
facility.
After word spread of the death of at least the defense minister, a
series of cars were seen heading to the site of the bombing from the
presidential offices. Republican guards and other security forces sealed
off the entire area around the explosion and the hospital, activists
said.
In the confusion after the attack, and in the absence of an
authoritative official account, there were conflicting reports about who
was killed and who survived.
Activists and media reports spoke of fatalities among the most senior
figures in the very inner circle of the Assad administration, a close
group that includes the deputy chief of staff of the military, Mohamed
Sha’ar, the minister of the interior and Hisham Ikthtiar, the head of
the national security bureau.
Other members of the group include Gen. Ali Mamlouk, the chief of
general intelligence; Abdel-Fattah Qudsiyeh, the head of military
intelligence, and Mohammad Nassif Kheyrbek, a senior security adviser.
Since the uprising began in March, 2011, Syria has been run by an ever
tighter circle of army and security officials close to the president.
The killings represented as much a psychological blow as a physical one,
emboldening the opposition, analysts said, and challenging Mr. Assad to
demonstrate quickly that his forces can still confront the rebels.
“Can they demonstrate the ability to put down this challenge and show
that they are on the way to survival?” said an analyst with long
experience in Damascus, speaking in return for anonymity because he
still works there. “The opposition cannot defeat the regime militarily
but they can defeat it through psychology.”
Even as state media reported the attack, the country’s Russian-armed
military was reported to have suffered further defections among its top
ranks, with two brigadier generals among 600 Syrians who fled to Turkey
overnight, Reuters reported.
Their action brought to 20 the number of such high-ranking figures, who
include a onetime close associate of Mr. Assad, Gen. Manaf Tlass, the
son of a former defense minister.
There was also new evidence, reported by Israel’s intelligence chief, that Mr. Assad was moving troops into Damascus from Syria’s border with the disputed Golan Heights territory held by Israel, a possible sign of the seriousness of the fighting shaking regions at Mr. Assad’s doorstep.
Before the bombing on Wednesday, the epicenter of the Damascus fighting
remained an area in the capital’s southwest where street battles first
erupted on Sunday, particularly the Midan neighborhood where rebel
fighters concentrated after Mr. Assad’s forces chased them from
surrounding quarters.
Activists also reported continued government attacks on the northern
suburb of Qaboun overnight and spoke of a clash around a military base
near the presidential palace. Those reports, however, were sketchy and
difficult to confirm.
Opponents posted videos online showing what they said was the
destruction of civilian homes by earlier artillery in Qaboun and Midan.
Images said to be from Midan showed a series of traditional, arched
stone buildings with the roofs collapsed.
Midan is one of the oldest, more traditional quarters, a labyrinthine
patchwork of narrow streets and old stone houses that attracted the
rebel fighters partly because the army’s heavy weaponry is difficult to
maneuver in the neighborhood.
But it is best known for the bustling Jazmateyeh food market, packed
with popular restaurants and food shops, and the go-to address for
Damascenes seeking the city’s famous honey-pistachio pastries. With the
holy month Ramadan looming, when such foods are popular for the sunset
feast to break the daily fast, the fighting in Midan suddenly threw the
quarter’s traditional role into question.
In fact, Damascenes, having seen residents of other cities where
fighting raged over the past 16 months flee to the capital, were
suddenly casting about, alarmed over where they could turn should the
fighting spread. “People from other areas sought refuge in Damascus —
where would the people of Damascus go now?” one activist said. COPY : http://www.nytimes.com
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