Syrian violence escalates after bombing kills aides to Assad

BEIRUT — Widespread violence erupted on the streets of Damascus on Wednesday as Syrian security forces and pro-government militias lashed out in revenge for a bombing that killed at least three of the most crucial figures in the nation’s military establishment, calling into question President Bashar al-Assad’s control even over his capital.

The blast targeted a meeting of the top security chiefs charged with overseeing a crackdown against the country’s 16-month-old revolt. The bombing suggesting that the rebels have managed to penetrate the most loyal core of Assad’s inner circle of advisers.

The dead included Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha; Hassan Turkmani, a former minister of defense who headed the regime’s crisis management cell; and Asef Shawkat, Assad’s brother-in-law and deputy chief of staff of the Syrian military.

The government denied news reports that other top figures were also killed in the late morning bombing at the National Security Building in the heart of one of the capital’s most upscale and closely guarded neighborhoods. But the significance of the identities of those confirmed dead was not lost on Syrians or the wider international community.

“It’s obvious that what’s happening in Syria represents a real escalation in the fighting,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday at a Pentagon news briefing. “This is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control.”

The rebel Free Syrian Army said its loyalists planted bombs inside a room where the government’s central command unit for crisis management — a special cell comprised of about a dozen of the country’s top security chiefs — was to meet to discuss efforts to crush the uprising.

The bombs were detonated remotely from outside the building once the meeting was underway, said Col. Malik Kurdi, the rebel group’s deputy commander. “The Free Syrian Army carried out this attack in retaliation for the massacres committed by the regime and because of the international silence,” Kurdi said. “We promised that we are going to hit the regime in its most sensitive axis. This was necessary for us.”

The government said others at the meeting were injured. Some news outlets reported that Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar was badly hurt and eventually died from his wounds, but the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said he and another official identified only as Lt. Gen. Hisham were in “stable” condition. The agency was apparently referring to Hisham Bakhtiar, Assad’s national security chief.

The White House said President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the deteriorating situation in Syria by telephone Wednesday morning. Obama cautioned Putin that maintaining Russia’s alliance with the Assad regime would put his country on the “wrong side of history,” press secretary Jay Carney said.

That the bomber was able to penetrate so deeply into the heart of the establishment could have a powerful effect on morale, not only within Assad’s cabinet but also across the ranks of the military and regime supporters who have thus far remained loyal.

Within hours, fresh defections from security services around the country were reported, as well as revenge attacks by Assad loyalists in Damascus. Although the reports could not be immediately confirmed, they demonstrated the potential for the bombing to rapidly accelerate the disintegration of the government, and to trigger even greater chaos.

Damascus residents reported that pro-government militiamen known as shabiha were swarming into the streets of several Damascus neighborhoods, bent on exacting vengeance. According to one eyewitness in the Shaghour neighborhood of the historic walled Old City, militiamen were breaking down doorways and killing families with knives. The man, who asked not to be named, said he was watching scenes of panic from the roof of his building, as both men and children, carrying guns and knives, ran into the street to try to defend the area against the militiamen.

Opposition activist Tareq Saleh of the Revolutionary Leadership Council of Damascus said he was receiving reports of similar killings in the areas of Hajar al-Aswad and Qadam. “Shabiha militias are killing people with knives,” he said. “There are tens of bodies on the streets.”

The information was impossible to corroborate independently, but activists posted videos of what appeared to be three bodies in the streets of Qadam.

“The situation is getting worse by the second,” said a resident of the Qaboun neighborhood who was contacted by Skype and asked not to be identified because he fears for his safety. “Armed people are walking in the streets. I can’t tell who they are or what God they believe in.”

Elsewhere in the capital, the streets were calm but tense, with most shops closed and few people venturing out. “There is so much fear among the people,” Saleh said. “We are expecting massacres.”

There were numerous reports that many army soldiers had defected in the northern province of Idlib and in parts of the flashpoint city of Homs.

According to a Homs activist who calls himself Abu Emad, more than 250 soldiers were seen abandoning their posts in the Old City neighborhood, long a battleground between rebels and the regime. Armored vehicles pulled out and the soldiers fled, he said, some of them joining the rebels and others simply leaving the area.

At the same time, Assad loyalists still in position around the edge of the city were shelling the area with renewed intensity, he said.

Hours after Wednesday’s bombing, the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, reported heavy clashes between the military and rebel forces in Qaboun. They said helicopters were being used in the attack. Shelling was also reported in the capital’s Midan neighborhood.

The bombing, which sent a huge plume of smoke over the Damascus skyline, was planned over the last two months, said Kurdi, the Free Syrian Army officer. He said the rebels had information about the regular meetings of the crisis group and were monitoring the movements of the senior officials taking part in the meetings. Kurdi also said there was an earlier plan to poison the food served at these meetings, but that plan fell through in May.

Assad appointed Fahd Jassem al-Freij, deputy commander in chief of the armed forces, as his new minister of defense, the government said in a statement.

The intense fighting in the capital marked the first time that many Damascus residents had seen overt signs of the bloody uprising against Assad that has left at least 14,000 Syrians dead.

Will Englund in Moscow, Joby Warrick and David Nakamura in Washington and Suzan Haidamous, Ahmed Ramadan and a special correspondent in Beirut contributed to this report.