Suicide blast rocks Syrian city

A suicide car bomb blast shook Syria’s eastern city of Deir el-Zour today, targeting a military compound in the latest of a wave of blasts to hit the country in recent months, the country’s state media reported.

State TV said the blast caused casualties, and showed footage of damaged buildings, smouldering cars, and trucks turned upside down by the blast. Debris filled a street that was stained with blood. The station said UN observers based in the city visited the site of the blast.

The state-run news agency SANA identified the site of the blast as the car park of a military residential compound. An opposition group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that the car bomb went off near where the city branches of the Military Intelligence Directorate and Air Force Intelligence are located.

Security agencies in several Syrian cities have been targeted by a wave of explosions since late last year, raising fears that al Qaida-linked Islamist militants, possibly including fighters from neighbouring Iraq, have made strong inroads into Syria’s rebel movement.

The most recent bombing targeted an intelligence building in Damascus on May 10. It struck during morning rush hour and the high death toll – some 55 people - made it the deadliest such attack since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in March of last year.

Some of the tactics used in Damascus – a small blast drawing attention prior to a larger one – were reminiscent of al Qaida attacks during Iraq’s insurgency.

Deir el-Zour is about 60 miles from the Iraqi border. Today’s blast came a day after the state-run news agency SANA reported that authorities foiled an attempt to blow up a car rigged with explosives in the city and detained those involved.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believes that “alarmingly and surprisingly,” al Qaida must have been behind the May 10 attack in the Syrian capital.

“The recent terrorist attacks in Damascus suggest that these attacks were carefully orchestrated,” he said. “Having seen the scale and sophistication of these terrorist attacks, one might think that this terrorist attack was done by a certain group with organisation and clear intent. I have strongly condemned these terrorist attacks.”