Suicide car bombers kill 55 in Damascus -govt

Smoke rises from the wreckage of mangled vehicles at the site of an explosion in Damascus May 10, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

BEIRUT - Two suicide car bombers killed more than 55 people and wounded 372 in the Syrian capital Damascus, the Syrian Interior Ministry said in a statement on government-owned TV on Thursday.

The rush hour explosions hit a district that houses a well-known military intelligence complex involved in President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on a 14-month-old uprising. State media said earlier the majority of the casualties were civilians.

People run carrying a burnt body at the site of an explosion in Damascus May 10, 2012. Dozens of people were killed or wounded in two "terrorist explosions" which struck a southern district of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, state television said. [Photo/Agencies]

The bombings, the deadliest in the Syrian capital since the revolt began, further shredded a ceasefire which was declared by international mediator Kofi Annan on April 12, but which has failed to halt bloodshed pitting Assad's security forces against peaceful demonstrators and an array of armed insurgents.

Opposition leaders said Annan's peace plan was dead and that the government had systematically sabotaged it.

Syrian television blamed "terrorists" for the morning rush-hour blasts. It showed mangled, smouldering vehicles, some with charred remains of their occupants inside.

The near-simultaneous explosions hit the al-Qazaz district just before 8 am (0500 GMT), residents said. One punched a crater three metres (10 feet) deep in the city's southern ring road. Bloodied corpses and body parts could be seen on the road.

An aerial view shows the site of two explosions in Damascus May 10, 2012. Two large explosions killed 55 people in Damascus on Thursday, state media said, destroying dozens of cars on a highway and damaging an intelligence complex involved in President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on a 14-month-old uprising. [Photo/Agencies]

State television also showed at least one overturned lorry. Walls of buildings on each side of the avenue had collapsed.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts.

"This is yet another example of the suffering brought upon the people of Syria from acts of violence," said Major-General Robert Mood, leader of the UN monitors, who visited the scene.

The attacks occurred a day after a bomb blast near U.N. observers monitoring the ceasefire, which state forces and rebels have both violated, and two weeks after authorities said a suicide bomber killed at least nine people in Damascus.

Security personnel stand near destroyed vehicles at the site of an explosion in Damascus May 10, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

DAILY KILLINGS

Opposition to Assad, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011, has grown increasingly militarised. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday there was only a narrow window of opportunity to avert full-scale civil war.

"There is no escaping the reality that we see every day," he said. "Innocent civilians dying, government troops and heavy armour in city streets, growing numbers of arrests and allegations of brutal torture, an alarming upsurge in the use of IEDs and other explosive devices throughout the country."

The British-based Observatory said a car bomb targeting an intelligence complex had caused at least one of the explosions.

One resident reported limited damage to the facade of the nearby Palestine Branch Military Intelligence centre, one of the most feared of more than 20 Syrian secret police agencies.

The Palestine Branch, a huge walled complex on the ring road, was the target of a car bomb in 2008 which killed 17 people and which authorities blamed on Islamist militants.

Shooting could be heard in the background of the Syrian television footage, filmed soon after the blasts. It showed a man pointing to the wreckage. "Is this freedom? This is the work of the Saudis," he said, referring to the Gulf state that has advocated arming rebels seeking to oust Assad.

Nadine Haddad, a candidate in Monday's parliamentary election which was boycotted by most opposition figures, blamed Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who also says Syrian rebels should get weapons.

"I am addressing Sheikh Hamad and I tell him shame on you. You are now destroying the Syrian people, not the Syrian regime. You are killing children going to school," she said.

Qatar condemned the blasts in Damascus and called on all sides to stop the bloodshed in Syria.