{"id":4971,"date":"2008-09-29T02:22:24","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T23:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=4971"},"modified":"2013-10-12T22:29:10","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T19:29:10","slug":"top-syrian-officer-among-bomb-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/09\/29\/top-syrian-officer-among-bomb-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Top Syrian officer among bomb victims&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A mysterious explosion near Damascus on Saturday claimed the lives of at least 17 people, including a brigadier-general, further destabilizing the Syrian regime. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A car bomb carrying 200 kilograms of explosives exploded <strong>near the Palestine branch of Syrian Military Intelligence, the London-based daily <em>Asharq Alawsat<\/em> reported.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong><strong>The identity of the high-ranking military officer<\/strong>, who was reportedly killed as a result of the explosion, <strong>had not yet been revealed. <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Palestine branch of Syrian Military Intelligence is headed by Gen. Suleiman Dayoub, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad&#8217;s brother-in-law, Gen. Asif Shawkat, who heads military Intelligence and is considered one of the strongest men in the Syrian regime.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>The Media Line&#8217;s analysts indicate this was the second incident this year directed against a security target. Earlier this year, Assad&#8217;s top security adviser Muhammad Suleiman was assassinated in Tartous. The investigation into his murder was not made public.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Saturday&#8217;s attack may be connected to Suleiman&#8217;s assassination and to a behind-the-scenes battle within the top Syrian security command. Various unconfirmed reports over the past few months indicated that Assad may have begun to worry about Shawkat&#8217;s increasing power.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Syria, of course, is not revealing any such internal disputes, and is trying to place the blame on outside elements.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>&#8220;Unfortunately, in the years that followed the American war on terror, terrorism has further spread. These kinds of incidents can occur anywhere and are not indicative of security breaches,&#8221; Syria&#8217;s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told reporters.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Muallem said further that Israel was among the &#8220;biggest benefactors&#8221; of the attack.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong>Source: <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/servlet\/Satellite?cid=1222017413324&amp;pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull\">The Jerusalem Post<\/span>, <span class=\"byline\">Sep 28, 2008<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mysterious explosion near Damascus on Saturday claimed the lives of at least 17 people, including a brigadier-general, further destabilizing the Syrian regime. A car bomb carrying 200 kilograms of explosives exploded near the Palestine branch of Syrian Military Intelligence, the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat reported. The identity of the high-ranking military officer, who was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":462741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,42,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-russia","category-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}