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(Reuters) - Syria's defense minister was killed in a bomb attack on a high level security meeting in Damascus on Wednesday, state television said, as the revolt against Bashar al-Assad struck at the heart of the president's inner circle.

Bomb kills Syrian defense minister as Damascus battle rages-Reuters


And this is posted on their homepage:

BREAKING NEWS: Syrian defense minister killed in explosion; interior minister and Assad's brother-in-law wounded: TV reports

Seems regime figures getting targeted now....
 
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Syria conflict: 'Suicide bomb' kills Defence Minister

Beirut: Syria's state-run TV has said the country's Defence Minister has been killed in a suicide blast in the capital.

Wednesday's attack struck the National Security building in Damascus during a meeting of Cabinet ministers and senior security officials. State-run TV said some of the officials were seriously wounded and later reported the Defence Minister killed.

The capital has seen four straight days of clashes pitting government troops against rebels, who are trying to bring down the regime by force.

Syria conflict: 'Suicide bomb' kills Defence Minister | NDTV.com

[video]http://in.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idINDEE86G0AV20120718#a=1[/video]

(Reuters) - Syria's defence mininister was killed in a bomb attack on a high level security meeting in Damascus on Wednesday, state television said, as the revolt against Bashar al-Assad struck at the heart of the president's inner circle.

State television said Defence Minister Daoud Rajha was killed in a "terrorist bombing".

Lebanon-based news channel al-Maydeen said several senior security officials had been killed in the attack while battles raged within sight of Assad's presidential palace.

Republican Guard troops sealed off the Shami hospital near the sign of the explosion in northern Damascus, indicating senior officials were among the wounded, activists contacted by telephone had said.

"The terrorist explosion which targeted the national security building in Damascus occurred during a meeting of ministers and a number of heads of (security) agencies," the television said.

The start of a fourth day of fighting in the capital early on Wednesday had already brought the 16-month-old revolt close to the centre of power.

An army barracks near the "palace of the people", a huge Soviet-tyle complex overlooking the sprawling capital from the western district of Dummar, came under rebel fire around 7.30 a.m. (0430 GMT), activists and a resident said.

"I could hear the sound of small arms fire and explosions are getting louder and louder from the direction of the barracks," Yasmine, who works as an architect, said by telephone from Dummar.

FIRE IN THE BARRACKS

Video footage broadcast by activists appeared to show fire in the barracks overnight as a result of an attack by mortar rounds, but residents who saw the fire said they had not heard explosions to indicate it was a result of an attack.

Dummar is a secure area containing many auxiliary installations for the presidential palace and the barracks is just hundreds of meters from the palace itself.

Fighting also erupted overnight in the southern neighbourhoods of Asali and Qadam, and Hajar al-Aswad and Tadamun - mainly Sunni Muslim districts housing Damascenes and Palestinian refugees.

Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated power in Syria since a 1963 coup.

It has endured more than a year of rebellion but recent high level defections signalled support beginning to fall away.

Two Syrian brigadier-generals were among some 600 Syrians who fled from Syria to Turkey overnight, a Turkish official said on Wednesday, bringing the number of Syrian generals sheltering in Turkey to 20, including a retired general.

The official could not immediately confirm if other defected officers had also arrived in Turkey in the last 24 hours but said a number of lower-ranking soldiers usually accompanied defecting generals.

OPPOSITION CAUTIOUS

In Damascus, government troops used heavy machineguns and anti-aircraft guns against rebels moving deep in residential neighbourhoods, armed mostly with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

Rebels directed their fire overnight at a large state facility turned headquarters for pro-Assad militia, known as shabbiha, drawn mainly from Alawite enclaves in nearby hills.

Army tanks and anti-aircraft guns, used as an infantry weapon, took positions in the northern neighbourhood of Barzeh, where hundreds of families from the neighbouring district of Qaboun are seeking shelter.

"Anti-aircraft guns are firing at Qaboun from Barzeh. There are lots of families in the streets with no place to stay. They came from Qaboun and from the outskirts of Barzeh," said Bassem, one of the activists, speaking by telephone from Barzeh.

In the central neighborhood of Midan tanks and infantry fighting vehicles known as BDMs took positions in main thoroughfares and sporadic fighting was reported.

"Armour have not been able to enter the alleyways and old streets of Midan. The neighbourhoods of old Zahra and the old area near Majed mosque are in the hands of the rebels," said Abu Mazen, an activist in the district.

Rebel fighters have called the intensified guerrilla attacks in recent days, which have targeted shabbiha buses, unmarked intelligence patrols and armoured vehicles in the capital, the battle "for the liberation of Damascus" after 16 months of revolt.

But senior opposition figures took a more nuanced view.

"It is going to be difficult to sustain supply lines and the rebels may have to make a tactical withdrawal at one point, like they did in other cities," veteran opposition activist Fawaz Tello said from Istanbul.

"But what is clear is that Damascus has joined the revolt," Tello, a Damascene, told Reuters. "By hitting well known Sunni districts of the city, such as Midan, the regime is exposing the sectarian nature of the crackdown."

Information Minister Omran Zoabi said on Tuesday security forces were fighting armed infiltrators in Damascus. He said many had surrendered while others "escaped on foot and by car and are firing randomly in the air to frighten people".

The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to vote later on Wednesday in New York on a Western-backed resolution that threatens Assad's government with sanctions unless he stops using heavy weapons in towns and cities. Russia has declared it will block the move.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes and Erika Soloman in Beirut and Jonathon Burch in Ankara; writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Peter Millership)

Bomb kills Syrian defence minister as Damascus battle rages | Reuters
 
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Interesting. So the righteous and humane US/West is on the same side with the terrorist now?
 
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American terrorists trying to bloody up the great Assad's rule.
 
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this is fvcking crazy. the west are now turning naked evil.
 
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This is sadly the way it needs to be...unlike Libya...the West stay Out and the East too...let the Syrian people do what they need too.
 
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Allalhu Akbar!! Allahu Akbar!!
The Criminal leaders and Commanders of Asad thugs gangs killed and injured in a daring attack in Security headquarter. Insha Allah it will proved to be the start of fall and defeat of criminal Asad regime. Reports are that Asef Shawkat, brother in law of Asad and deputy defence minister of syria also killed in the attack and many more ministers and commanders.

Long live FSA!!!!!!!!!
 
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Killing a defence minister of a country in an unfair way is just sad.

not only that, the west systematically assassinate Iranian scientists is a plus.

this is a world of terrorism. let's name it Non Compliance Terrorism conducted by the U.S and other west nations, plus their
 
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US is the main terrorist , they were responsible for the assassinations of Gaddafi ,Saddam and now Syrian defence minister . I wonder why Osama didnt target white house seriously .
 
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RIP

120718120011-dawood-rajiha-2-story-top.jpg
 
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US is the main terrorist , they were responsible for the assassinations of Gaddafi ,Saddam and now Syrian defence minister . I wonder why Osama didnt target white house seriously .

He tried on 9/11, remember the 4th plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. We got him first. You should thank Osama for allowing us to take the gloves off in assassinations. Thank God for Osama.
 
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He tried on 9/11, remember the 4th plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. We got him first. You should thank Osama for allowing us to take the gloves off in assassinations. Thank God for Osama.

Osama was scum, but why does the US have to take sides in the Syrian issue? And how can you justify a terrorist act? Would you have approved if other countries had brainwashed and turned the occupy protesters into anarchists?
 
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Osama was scum, but why does the US have to take sides in the Syrian issue? And how can you justify a terrorist act? Would you have approved if other countries had brainwashed and turned the occupy protesters into anarchists?

We don't have to justified anything because we don't go around killing occupy protesters and starting a civil war. It was one of their own bodyguards that killed them. Obama has to do something so extreme to push a Secret Service agent to do something similar.
 
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We don't have to justified anything because we don't go around killing occupy protesters and starting a civil war. It was one of their own bodyguards that killed them. Obama has to do something so extreme to push a Secret Service agent to do something similar.

So the general American is less oppressed and more reasonable than a Syrian rebel. If they had gone harming other citizens, I am sure there would have been a retaliation. Not a civil war - but people would have died.

It is funny that you bring up civil war - in the American version, the world still worships the man with the right cause but who used unconstitutional means to kill his own people (Lincoln), but demonizes the man who stood for the wrong ideas but was within his constitutional right to secede (Davis). Whom would you support if that were a modern day event? The rebels (Confederates) or the president inflicting war on his own people?
 
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