Syria: bomb attacks in Damascus as protests planned - live updates
'30 killed' in double bomb attacks
State TV blames Damascus attacks on suicide bombers
Protests planned against Arab League's 'protocol of death'
11.55am: The Associated Press has more on the visit by the Syrian deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, to the scene of the Damascus blasts, accompanied by Arab League observers.
Mekdad is quoting as saying
We said it from the beginning, this is terrorism. They are killing the army and civilians.
The head of the observer advance team, Sameer Seif el-Yazal, said:
We are here to see the facts on the ground... What we are seeing today is regretful, the important thing is for things to calm down.
11.38am: Syrian channel, Addounia TV, is reporting that the death toll has risen to 40 with more than 100 injured.
Syria's deputy foreign minister Faysal Mekdad has visited the scene of the explosions, says al-Jazeera's Zeina Khodr.
#Syria deputy foreign minister took an advance team of #Arableague observers to the scene of the blasts in #Damascus
#Syria deputy foreign minister says the blasts bolster govt claims that turmoil shaking country was the work of terrorists
11.17am: The Arab Digest, a blog by a Middle East reporter, says the Damascus attack is reminiscent of the 2005 assassination of the Leban! ese prim e minister Rafik Hariri, which was also initially blamed on al-Qaida.
It speculates that the Assad regime is behind today's attacks for the following reasons:
1. Friday is a day off which means more civilians will die than security services.2. Arab League observers just arrived in town, and such operations serve the regime's reasoning of current events, and justifies to some extent its heavy handedness.
3. Precedence. The regime has allegedly used a suicide bomber in Lebanon's Hariri assassination.
It adds:
The fact that the regime quickly accused al-Qaida and had a team of media people quickly reporting and analysing this, will draw more suspicions regarding its possible involvement.
11.10am: The head of the Free Syrian Army, has condemned the attack according to al-Jazeera's Zeina Khodr.
#FSA head Riad Assaad told me they condemn #Damascus bombings and were not involved,#Syria
Zeina Khodr (@ZeinakhodrAljaz) December 23, 2011
11.08am: Here is what Syria's official state news agency, Sana, is saying about the explosions:
Two terrorist attacks on Friday targeted [the] state security directorate and another security branch in Damascus, causing many military and civilian deaths and the majority were civilians.
Preliminary investigations indicated that that the criminal attack carries the blueprints of al-Qaida.
The two attacks, according to the investigations, were carried out by two suicide bombers with two booby-trapped cars.
< br>The report includes unbelievably gruesome images (WARNING: very graphic).
11.01am: Another video shows a column of smoke rising above Damascus after the explosions.
In the accompanying text, Russia Today, which posted the video says medical sources said at least 10 dead civilians and military personnel were taken to a nearby hospital. (Lebanese TV says 30 people were killed).
BE WARNED, this video contains very disturbing scenes. It shows debris, blood on the pavement and charred bodies.
The TV report says the attack was aimed at Russian intelligence.
10.32am: Thirty people were killed in the bomb attacks, according to a Lebanese TV channel.
FLASH: At least 30 killed, 55 wounded in blasts on Syrian security sites, most are civilians - Lebanon's al-Manar TV
Reuters India (@ReutersIndia) December 23, 2011
10.30am: French consultant Jean Pierre Duthion, who said he was 500m from the explosion, tweeted as it happened.
I just heard two huge explosions. #Damascus #Damas #Syria
@ProblematiqueD I saw the walls going from right to left like in a shaker. #Damascus #Syria
Pontya (@ProblematiqueD), also in Damascus, tweeted:
I live in Northern Damascus, the explosion took place down sout! h and my whole apartment was shaking. THAT'S how big the explosion was #Syria
10.23am: Syrian state TV is reporting an arrest of a perpetrator, the speediness of which is only adding fuel to the scepticism.
Shakeeb Al-Jabri tweets:
Expect "confession" by perpetrator of Damascus bombings on #Syria TV in the next couple of days.
Another detail that might add to the scepticism - Syrian Addounia TV is reportedly saying that the cars that carried out the attack had pictures of Osama Bin Laden on them.
10.02am: Syrian TV now says the attacks were car bombs, according to al-Akhbar English.
Activist continue to express suspicions.
Is it merely a coincidence that these bombings only happened when the monitors' advance team arrived? #Syria
Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) December 23, 2011
State TV is showing very awful pictures of the explosions and victims to regain some support from the Syrian population! #Syria
AnonymousSyria (@AnonymousSyria) December 23, 2011
9.54am: Syrian state TV says several peo! ple, mos tly civilians, were killed in the Damascus attack, AP reports.
The TV report does not give exact numbers of deaths, saying only "a number of military personnel and civilians, mostly civilians," died.
Activists are sceptical about the way the attack is being reported.
Syria TV interviews commentator on Damascus attacks. The commentator is only blaming SNC's Ghallioun and US and Israel. #Syria
Basma (@Basma_) December 23, 2011
9.45am: Syrian blogger Maysaloon has this instant take on the attack:
Rather than New York, London or Paris, al Qaeda has decided to pick - of all the metropolitan centres of human civilization - to carry out attacks in Assad's Damascus, on the first Friday after Arab League observers come to the country. This is according to the Syrian regime, which made this claim forty minutes after Damascus residents heard the explosions. I think that's nonsense, and there are only two possibilities. Either it is a bogus attack carried out by Assad's incompetent secret police, or it is a genuine attack carried out by the opposition's incompetent armed wing. I say the opposition's incompetence, because I can find nothing sillier than blowing up bombs in Damascus just when the Arab League observers have arrived to figure out just what the hell is happening in Syria. If they have carried out such an act, then they will have given the regime further fuel for their claims that they are fighting a terrorist insurgency, rather than repressing the Syrian people. Expect more claims and counter-claims, accusations and lies, as this story progresses
9.20am: Welcome to Middle East Live.
Two loud explosions have rocked the Syrian capital Damascus after Arab ! League o bservers arrived to monitor the government's crackdown. State TV claimed al-Qaida was behind what it claimed were suicide attacks on security bases.
The attacks come as activists plan to rally to the slogan 'protocol of death - a licence to kill' in protests at the Arab League observer mission that they claim is being used as cover by the Assad regime to continue to its brutal crackdown.
Elsewhere, planned protests in Egypt have two official titles: "The Friday of Egypt's women" and "Restoring Honour". And in Yemen a "Life March" from Taiz is due to arrive in the capital Sana'a to call for the prosecution of president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Here's a round up of the latest developments:
Syria
Syrian state television is reporting two attacks on security sites in Damascus. An Associated Press reporter in Damascus said the blasts went off within a minute of one another in the Kfar Sousa district and sent thick clouds of smoke billowing into the sky. The state news agency Sana said:
Two terrorist attacks on Friday targeted State Security Directorate and another Security Branch in Damascus, preliminary investigations Indicate that the criminal attack carries the blueprints of al Qaeda.
The two attacks, according to the investigations, were carried by two suicide bombers with two booby-trapped cars.
An advance party of Arab League observers has arriv! ed in Da mascus amid widespread suspicion that they will not be granted unfettered access to monitor the crackdown. One of the nominated observers,Wissam Tarif, a human rights activist with the Avaaz group, said he fear Syrian authorities will try to control the visits. Speaking to the Washington Post he said:
I am concerned that they will negotiate name by name, and I know for sure that they are very tough on liberty of mobilization and on the the security issue. The Arab League should make it very clear that they can't drag this into weeks and weeks of negotiations. The Syrian people do not have the luxury of time.
The Free Syrian Army has called on the international community to send arms to help it protect civilian. Captain Abd'Razaq Tlas, a commander with the FSA, told the Telegraph: "Whether the weapons come from the Arab world or from the West, it should be understood that we will only use them to protect the civilian population.
The Local Coordination Committee in Syria counted 41 deaths on Thursday including 25 in Homs after it said the army shelled the city's Baba Amro district. Activists have also named 58 people killed in this week's massacre in Idlib's Jabal al-Zawiyeh mountains. Horrific video footage shows scores of bodies laid out on a floor in the village of Kafr Owaid, the focus of an army assault aimed killing deserters.
More than 6,200 people, including hundreds of children, have died in Syria's crackdown since the uprising began, according to a count by the campaign group Avaaz. The new tally came as the Syrian governme! nt claim ed that 2,000 members of its security forces had been killed in the unrest.
The US ambassador to the UN accused her Russian counterpart of raising civilian deaths in Libya as a "cheap stunt" to distract attention from Moscow's failure to condemn the Syrian government crackdown. TheRussian ambassador Vitaly Churkin called for an investigation into Nato's bombing campaign. US ambassador Susan Rice responded: "Oh, the bombast and bogus claims.Is everyone sufficiently distracted from Syria now and the killing that is happening before our very eyes?I think it's not an exaggeration to say that this is something of a cheap stunt to divert attention from other issues and to obscure the success of Nato and its partners.
Egypt
Activists and opposition parties have called for another demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir square to protest a five day crackdown that left 16 people dead. The protest has two official names according to Egyptian Chronicles: "The Friday of Egypt's women" and "Restoring Honour".
Iraq
At least 72 people were killed and 217 injured in a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday.The blasts took place against the backdrop of a political crisis that led to the Shia-dominated government of the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, this week accusing the country's Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, of terrorism.
Palestinian territories
Rival Palestinian factions have agreed to form a unified government,! which w ill be sworn in by the end of January. The Palestinian president,Mahmoud Abbas, andHamasleader Khaled Meshaal met in Cairo to agree the groundbreaking deal after days of heated negotiation between representatives of Palestinian political groups led by Hamas andFatah.
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