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Damascus Blast Said to Kill at Least 15 Damascus Blast Said to Kill at Least 15
(about 9 hours later)
DAMASCUS, Syria — An explosion from a car bomb tore through central Damascus on Monday, the government said, killing 15 people in a blast that rattled windows, spread chaos and sent billows of dark smoke over an area that had been packed with people forming lines at banks, insurance companies and cellphone outlets. DAMASCUS, Syria — Jayda al-Kanna, 65, was cooking in her kitchen across from the Syrian Central Bank on Monday afternoon, a dish towel slung around her neck. Downstairs, children packed the Salim Bukhari primary school, and older students studied drawing at a technical school in the same building.
As ambulances pushed through the crowd, hundreds of people streamed away, and others called relatives to check whether they had been close to the explosion. State television, which also said 54 people were wounded, showed upturned cars blackened by the blast as smoke blotted out the sky in the vicinity of the explosion. Fire crews sprayed jets of water onto nearby high-rise buildings, and at least one body was visible under the wreckage of a car. Without warning, an explosion shook the street, blasting a six-foot hole in Ms. Kanna’s living room wall, shattering the schools’ windows onto their students and blowing in the doors. Cars, body parts and broken glass flew through the air. Black smoke billowed.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which brought the country’s two-year-old revolt close to the heart of the city. The attack, witnesses and government authorities said, was the latest of dozens of car bombs to rip through Syrian business districts and neighborhoods during the country’s two-year war. It once again turned a wary but busy downtown commercial area into a scene of terror and chaos. The Syrian government blamed its opponents for Monday’s attack and said it killed at least 15 people and wounded at least 53.
The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the gates of the Central Bank’s parking lot, destroying an outer structure and shattering windows of two large office buildings. Inside one of the buildings, people peered down from a glassless window at mangled, blackened cars, destroyed shops across the street and swarming emergency workers. The proliferation of car bombs across Syria has frightened and enraged many on both sides in this battle, government supporters and opponents alike. The use of these powerful and indiscriminate weapons — rejected by some rebel factions — has undermined support for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and left many Syrians angry at the government for failing to stop the bombings.
“People were just sitting here working and doing their daily life, and suddenly this happened,” said a man whose curtain shop had its windows blown out. In Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Monday, some residents blamed the United States and its allies, which back the opposition, for the devastation.
A taxi driver said he had seen a minibus, similar to the kind usually used to transport employees, go through the checkpoint and into the parking lot where it exploded. A half-hour after the bombing, a drawing teacher, her hand bandaged, wept as she picked her way past bloodstains and shattered furniture inside what was left of the technical school.
A mosque and a building housing primary and technical schools and at least one apartment were across the street from where the bomb exploded. The building had gaping holes that framed the wreckage. On the ground floor, a school office had curtains and glass splayed across desks, and a television was on, broadcasting footage of the smoke and chaos that could also be seen out the window. A picture of the Syrian president hung above the television. “I was going to open the door, and it fell on me,” she said shakily, giving only her first name, Hanan. “Many students were injured.”
One woman, a teacher named Hanaa who worked at the technical school, was crying as she picked her way through the rubble with wounded hands. Along with students, she had been inside the school when the bomb exploded, and a door frame fell on her. A man with her prevented her from talking and shouted, “This is America, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia! They are funding those people to do those explosions!”
“This is America, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, they are funding those people to do those explosions!” a man who was with her shouted at journalists. In December 2011, when car bombs began hitting government security buildings — and killing civilians nearby — government supporters and opponents alike viewed the explosions as an ominous turn in the conflict.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain, put the death toll at 16 and said the explosion had been caused by a booby-trapped car. Until then, the fighting had largely pitted rebels with small arms and roadside bombs against the army and security forces. But suddenly, the Syrian capital was witnessing scenes reminiscent of the Iraqi insurgency. Checkpoints and blast walls went up everywhere.
As early details emerged, SANA, the state news agency, quoted a reporter as saying that “terrorists blew up a booby-trapped car in a crowded area near a school and a hospital, claiming the lives of many people and injuring others.” Some in the opposition said they suspected the government of setting the bombs to tarnish the uprising. But one rebel group, the extremist Nusra Front, began claiming responsibility for many of those attacks. That led to one of the first signs of the split in the armed opposition, between those who said they were defending themselves against a violent government crackdown and a minority who called for an Islamic state. And it repulsed some civilian activists who then distanced themselves from the movement.
That observation was reflected in the chaos on the streets as rescue efforts continued and people searched for loved ones. A woman in a pink hijab hurried away from the area, a phone pressed to her ear. “My daughter was in school, and they attacked the school, may God take them,” she said. An older man in a suit said into his telephone, “Cars went flying.” Now, the Nusra Front has become a major force on the battlefield, leading other rebel groups in more conventional fights. That poses a dilemma for the United States, which supports the opposition but rejects the Nusra Front and accuses it of ties to Al Qaeda.
Amer, a Syrian Red Crescent worker, said he saw three charred bodies as he removed a wounded person. A woman approached him, crying: “My daughter was inside. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.” The bombs have killed Syrians of all sects and views. In November, a car bomb hit the Damascus neighborhood of Mezze 86. News media speculated that the neighborhood was chosen because it includes military families and members of Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
The bombing followed claims by the authorities that they had cleared the eastern Ghouta area close to Damascus of rebels who are fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The blast came a day after the beleaguered government forces sought to push back against insurgents in many parts of the country, according to opposition activists. That characterization infuriated Salah, a graphic designer who lives there. Among the dead, he said in an e-mail interview, were his wife, Amal, and 7-year-old daughter, Hanan.
Reuters quoted a resident, who spoke in return for anonymity, as saying that the bomb had been planted despite the presence of six government checkpoints that were supposed to guarantee security in the area. Salah, 31, who gave only a first name, said that he was not an Assad supporter, nor, for that matter, an Alawite, though he stressed attacking those groups was not justified. The bombing convinced him that Western-backed rebels aimed to destroy Syria because its army is one of the few in the region not “funded, trained and controlled by the United States,” he said.
Fighting intensified in and around Aleppo, the country’s largest city, after government forces regained control of Aziza, a village near the city’s military airport, following weeks of clashes, reports said on Sunday. In January, a series of car bombs killed dozens of people in Salamiyeh, a town with a vocal nonviolent antigovernment movement. Last month, a suicide bomber struck a mosque, killing Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, 84, Syria’s most prominent Muslim leader and a government supporter.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the rebels in the village ran out of ammunition and were forced to withdraw. The village sits on high ground commanding the road between the military airport and the city. Central Damascus has remained government held and largely calm, though rebels occasionally hit with shells and bombs.
Syrian warplanes hit Aleppo in the north, Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and other locations in an apparent effort to counter recent territorial gains by the rebels, the activists said. On Monday, Syria’s prime minister, Wael al-Halqi, trudged through the rubble outside the central bank and told reporters that the bombing — which also damaged a nearby mosque — was committed by terrorists who “seek to undermine the moderate and compassionate Islam which has been a mainstay of the Syrian people for centuries.”
In The Hague, meanwhile, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said all serious claims about any use of chemical weapons should be investigated, news reports said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which struck just off the Sabaa Bahrat, or Seven Lakes Square, where a year ago dozens of Assad loyalists rallied and danced the dabke, a traditional line dance. The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the Central Bank’s parking lot, destroying an outer structure and shattering windows of two large office buildings. Inside the bank, trapped employees peered down from a glassless window at mangled, blackened cars, a charred palm tree and swarming emergency workers. A small boy rode his bicycle through the rubble.
“The use of chemical weapons by any side, under any circumstances, would constitute an outrageous crime with dire consequences and constitute a crime against humanity,” Mr. Ban told delegates to a chemical weapons conference on Monday. A taxi driver whose car windows were shattered by the explosion said he had seen a minibus with a lone driver, like those used to transport government employees, go through the checkpoint into the parking lot and explode. “People were just sitting here working and doing their daily life, and suddenly this happened,” said a man whose curtain shop had its windows blown out.
The extent of any inquiry has fueled differences between Western countries supporting the rebels and Russia, Mr. Assad’s main overseas backer. People streamed away on foot, first in silence, then shouting into cellphones. A small boy clung to his father’s leg. “My daughter was in school and they attacked the school!” screamed one woman in a bubble-gum-pink head scarf. “May God take them!”
While Russia wants an inquiry to focus on Syrian government claims that the insurgents used chemical weapons near Aleppo, France and Britain also want inquiries into rebel assertions that government forces used chemical weapons in the central city of Homs and in Damascus. Ms. Kanna, still in her pink housedress with her dish towel around her neck, sat alone in her dining room, where a white china cat sat unscathed on a sideboard. She refused to leave her apartment with emergency workers, though most of her relatives are far away, in Boston and Louisiana. She said she had a habit of biting her forefinger when frightened. This time, she said with a nervous laugh, “I drew blood.”
Mr. Ban said an advance team of inspectors was in Cyprus, Reuters reported, able to deploy within 24 hours if the Syrian authorities offered access.

Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Hwaida Saad from Damascus; and Alan Cowell from London.

Anne Barnard reported from Damascus, and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad in Damascus; Hania Mourtada in Beirut, Lebanon; Hala Droubi in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Christine Hauser in New York.