WarSclerotic

Israeli rescue crews to begin evacuating wounded from Bulgaria as death toll rises | The Times of Israel.

Bulgarian PM says suicide bomber with American passport carried out attack; Hercules planes to be used to transport injured home

By Sam Ser and Joshua Davidovich July 19, 2012, 6:00 am Updated: July 19, 2012, 7:36 am

Israeli rescue teams flown to Bulgaria began evacuating wounded from the resort town of Bourgas Thursday morning, as reports emerged that the deadly attack on a bus of tourists was carried out by a man with a fake American passport.

The death toll in the bombing on a bus of Israelis at the airport in Bourgas rose in the early hours of Thursday as one of the seriously injured victims succumbed to their wounds. Six of the dead are Israeli, and the Bulgarian bus driver was also killed.

Two victims remain in serious condition at a hospital in the capital of Sofia. The rest of the 34 wounded are in a local hospital or still at the airport in Bourgas waiting to be flown home by Israeli rescue teams.

On Thursday morning, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said the attack was likely carried out by a suicide bomber who likely detonated as he boarded the bus. It was previously thought the bomb had been in a suitcase placed on the bus.

The suicide bomber is one of the eight dead, officials said.

The suicide bomber was reportedly carrying an American passport and a driver’s license from Michigan, both thought to be fake, the Sofia News Agency reported.

In security video, the Caucasian man is seen walking around the premises for at least an hour, dressed in sports attire, the agency reported.

The American security agencies FBI and CIA have joined the investigation into the attack, along with Israeli and Bulgarian officials.

Bourgas is a popular vacation spot among Israelis, especially teenagers. About 40 people were on the bus when the bomb ripped through it Wednesday afternoon.

A ZAKA emergency rescue and ritual burial team prepares for its flight to Bourgas, Bulgaria, on July 18, 2012. (photo credit: Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)

A member of the Magen David Adom crew in Bulgaria said the wounded tourists would be flown back to Israel for treatment.

A number of large Hercules planes are being used to begin returning the injured to Israel Thursday morning. Bulgaria has also announced an airbus plane owned by the government would be used to fly Israelis home.

“Our goal is to return all the Israelis home in a matter of hours,” one MDA official told Ynet news.

Other Israelis who had been on the flight along with the bombed passengers complained Thursday morning that they were being held in the terminal, without being allowed to return to Israel or enter Bulgaria.

“They aren’t organized,” one passenger told Israel Radio. “We just want to go to our hotel and have a rest and then return to Israel.”

Smoke rising from the Sarafovo Airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, after a terror attack on an Israeli tour bus, July 18, 2012. (photo credit: JTA/Burgasinfo)

Others caught in the attack, including some of whom were lightly wounded in the blast in a bus next to the one that exploded, have refused to leave the airport for their hotels or undergo treatment in Bulgaria, saying they would rather return home to be checked out, according to Ynet news.

Also Thursday morning, a number of vacationers in Bourgas began returning to Israel as flights out of the Black Sea town resumed.

The returning vacationers were not caught in the bombing at the Bourgas airport, but their scheduled return flights were delayed by the closure of commercial flights after the terror attack.

West of Eden-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

The terror attack in Bulgaria ends an eight-year lull in bus bombings and is an ominous omen of worse that’s yet to come.

For Israelis, the image of a black, burned out hull of a bombed passenger bus fills the same role as a photo of the Twin Towers engulfed in smoke and fire does for Americans: it is a satanic symbol of their worst nightmares, a dreaded icon of their most fearful days, a picture of pure evil that remains etched in their minds, no matter how hard they might try to erase it.

After an eight year lull since the last Israeli bus was bombed in Be’er Sheva in 2004, that terrifying token reappeared yesterday in Burgas, Bulgaria in a terrorist incident that immediately conjured, despite the fact that it took place abroad, those dark days of the Second Intifada that many Israeli had hoped, against their better judgment, would never return.  It was at once both a terrible personal tragedy for the casualties and their family, but also an ominous national omen that the relative respite is over, and that worse is yet to come.

It truly was only a matter of time, as most everyone realized but preferred to ignore.  Israeli counter terrorism experts repeatedly warned in recent months that the threat to Israelis abroad had never been greater. After the foiled or botched terrorist attacks in Cyprus and Kenya and Turkey and Thailand and Azerbaijan, one of the efforts was bound to “succeed” and to take its mortal toll. It was the wicked fate of the innocent tourists seeking a cheap summer deal in Bulgaria that they were the ones who had to pay the ultimate price for the murderous obsessions of Israel’s worst enemies.

Some criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu’s supposedly hasty accusation against Iran, but his mistake, if at all, was most likely one of appearances, not substance. In the past year, Israeli intelligence agencies have been swamped with reports of Iranian agents or their Hezbollah proxies roaming the globe in search of a weak spot in which they could strike. Only four days ago, such an agent was apprehended in Cyprus, in Kenya a few weeks before, and throughout the past few months in other locales where the interdictions were more decisive but did not necessarily make the headlines.

But everyone knew that the intelligence agencies and local police forces would eventually run out of fingers with which to plug the holes in the dike, and that some Israelis would be made to pay the price. With Iran obsessed with what it perceives to be appropriate retaliation for the killing of its nuclear scientists and Hezbollah hell bent on reprisal for the 2008 assassination of its hero Imad Mughniye, and both increasingly frustrated by their repeated failures, a successful attack was bound to happen and its tragic results were bound to be.

Appearing on Fox News, former American Ambassador to the UN John Bolton quickly predicted – some would say with barely disguised glee – that Israel would retaliate directly against Iran and that a “major escalation” was in the offing. Sooner or later, one suspects, Bolton will be proven right: the sky is darkening, the clouds are gathering and the bloody confrontation that most everyone fears – except for Bolton and his cohorts, perhaps – indeed seems closer than ever before.  Between the bomb that decapitated Syria’s security apparatus in Damascus and the one that left dead bodies near a charred emblem in Bulgaria, it is hard to escape the notion that wheels have been set in motion and that the writing is right there on the wall, clear and terrifying, for all to see.

Israel official: Suicide bomber attacked Israelis in Bulgaria, eighth body found – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

New investigative direction counters previous estimates, according to which bomb was planted in Burgas tour bus; authorities say suspected perpetrator carried U.S. passport.

No reconciliation with the butcher of… JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.

Photo: Sana / Reuters

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

Hezbollah is responsible for the terror attack in Burgas under the auspices of Iran,  Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday.

The attack targeting Israelis killed at least seven people in the city of Burgas, soon after a charter plane, Air Bulgaria flight 392 arrived from Ben-Gurion Airport.

Barak told Israel Radio that Israel would do everything in its power to to find the perpetrators, and bring them to justice.

In response to Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev’s statement that Mossad did not warn Bulgaria of an expected attack, Barak said that Israeli intelligence services transfer all information of this nature that it receives. However, he said he did not think that intelligence services had accurate information such as the information it obtained in order to thwart the terror attacks in Cyprus and Thailand earlier in the year.

Assad has an escape route planned, if the rebels force him from Damascus | The Times of Israel.

The offensive against the regime, which killed part of the president’s inner circle Wednesday, will have profound effects on Syria, Lebanon and Israel

In this citizen journalist image, smoke billows over Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, July 18, 2012. A bomb ripped through a high-level security meeting Wednesday in Damascus, killing three top regime officials — including President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law. (photo credit: AP)

Wednesday’s Syrian rebel attack in Damascus was planned well in advance, and is part of a larger offensive currently underway in the Syrian capital, representing the greatest threat thus far to the Assad regime. The repercussions of this struggle will have profound effects on Israel’s security situation.

The blast, apparently from a suicide bomber who had access to the top ranks of the insular and suspicious regime, killed Defense Minister Daoud Rajha, the highest ranking Christian in the regime; Assef Shawkat, the president’s brother-in-law and deputy commander of the military; and Hassan Turkmani, military adviser to the foreign minister. Al Jazeera also reported several more blasts in a different region of the capital, near the headquarters of the Fourth Division, Syria’s Republican Guard, controlled by the President’s brother Maher.

These attacks, the most successful targeted killings in 17 months of armed uprising, are part of a larger campaign to pry the president from the Syrian capital.

Colonel Riad al-Assad, the Turkey-based commander of the Free Syrian Army, recently instructed his troops to wage a major offensive in Damascus. “There is no doubt that today’s attack was part of a coordinated effort, planned far in advance, and that it is part of the wider offensive we’ve seen in Damascus over the past three days,” said Dr. Ely Carmon of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism.

Carmon said the attack against the Assad-appointed national security crisis team was an inside job and was reminiscent of the deadly strike against Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel in September 1982 — a bombing that ended the short-lived presidency of the Phalangist leader.

Wednesday’s attacks are part of a string of assassinations.

Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the head of the IDF’s military intelligence, estimated Tuesday that “60 to 70 senior officers” have been killed thus far. In addition, some 13,000 soldiers have broken rank and left the army, including 18 Sunni generals.

“The wheel is turning, and eventually it will lead to the collapse of the regime, but these attacks do not mean that it will all be over tomorrow morning,” Carmon said.

‘A Sunni victory in Syria would change the entire situation in Lebanon,’ said Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an Arab affairs expert at Bar Ilan University. ‘It would lead to complete chaos’

Bashar Assad was Wednesday still believed to be in the capital, in the looming presidential palace; his leaving the area, though, would not mean the end of the conflict. The president has armored brigades and helicopters at his disposal. He would likely relocate to the largely Alawite area along the coast between Latakia and Tartus and the banks of the Orantes River.

Carmon said that in recent weeks he has seen a concerted effort “to purge” those areas of Sunni residents and to create “a sterile zone” for the president’s Alawite sect.

An enclave there would be beneficial for Iran and Hizbollah – offering the former a port to the Mediterranean and Europe and the latter, which has engaged in fighting in the neighboring Tripoli, a territorial link to the Alawite areas.

“A Sunni victory in Syria would change the entire situation in Lebanon,” said Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an Arab affairs expert at Bar Ilan University. “It would lead to complete chaos.” A crumbling of the Syrian regime would ripple into Lebanon.

For Israel, the primary concern is the regime’s chemical weapons.

Syria, one of the few countries in the world that is not a signatory to the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, is believed to have one of the largest stockpiles of mustard gas, sarin and VX. The weapons can be fired from artillery shells and Scud C ballistic missiles.

A CNN report in February said the US military estimated that it would require 75,000 ground troops to secure the weapons. Such a mission would likely be filled by the US, NATO, or Turkish troops. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich) told the National Journal earlier this week that “You have to go into this thinking what if Assad fails? Are we ready? I can’t talk about operation details. But I don’t believe that we’re ready. If the regime were to fall this week, I think we’d be in serious trouble.”

Israel would not have a role in securing the weapons on Syrian soil, but Maj. Gen. Kochavi said Tuesday that there was “daily and continuous surveillance” on the strategic weapons.

Carmon estimated that keeping track of those weapons was currently Israel’s number one security prerogative. The only chance for a strike, he said, was if Israel spotted a convoy of weapons moving toward Lebanon or Hizbollah.

In the long term, the IDF believes that destabilization in Syria, which seems to be one of the few certainties in the sectarian state, would lead to a sovereignty void along the Golan Heights and a sharp increase in terror.

Kochavi said Tuesday that IDF believes that a last ditch strike against Israel, as a means of deflecting the incoming fire against Assad, remains “a low probability.”

At least seven killed in attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria | The Times of Israel.

( Netanyahu said on the radio that Israel will respond forcefully to this Iran/Hizballa attack. – JW )

Here’s the Netanyahu statement in full:

“All the signs point to Iran. Just in the last few months, we saw Iran attempting to hurt Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other countries. Exactly 18 years after the infernal terror attack in the Jewish community center in Argentina, the murderous terror of the Iranians continues to hurt innocent people. This is a terrorist Iranian aggression revealing itself all over the world. Israel will respond forcefully to the Iranian terror.”

Over 30 wounded in explosion on bus carrying Israelis inside Bourgas airport; Netanyahu says, ‘All the signs point to Iran’

At least seven people were killed in an attack on an Israeli tour bus at the Sarafovo International Airport in the Bulgarian vacation city of Bourgas on Wednesday afternoon. Some news reports put the number of fatalities as high as 10.

According to initial reports, a bomb was placed in the bus, detonating to murderous effect. The impact was so strong as to damage two other buses nearby, also with Israelis on board. Some reports said the attack was a suicide bombing, but the local mayor said the bomb had been placed on the vehicle.

Nearly all the casualties were understood to be Israelis. A Bulgarian tour guide was among the dead.

Israel Police and the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry confirmed at least 20 people were injured in the attack.

Israel canceled all planes to Bulgaria.

A Bulgarian charter plane with 170 passengers from Tel Aviv to Bourgas landed at 4:50 p.m. local time, and its passengers boarded buses to take them from the plane to the terminal. The explosion occurred a short time later.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday: “All the signs point to Iran. Just in the last few months, we saw Iran attempting to hurt Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other countries. Exactly 18 years after the infernal terror attack in the Jewish community center in Argentina, the murderous terror of the Iranians  continues to hurt innocent people. This is a terrorist Iranian aggression revealing itself all over the world. Israel will respond forcefully to the Iranian terror.”

Some reports said three pregnant women were on the plane, as well as members of a youth basketball team.

Aron Katz, an Israeli eyewitness, said that a few moments after they got on the bus, “we heard a really loud boom, and felt the bus shake, and we ran off the bus.”

Katz noted that he saw several couples on the bus, some with young children. “I tried to get back on the bus after the explosion to get my daughter’s wheelchair, but they wouldn’t let me. I saw a woman lying unconscious, and tried to wake her,” Katz said, adding that the scene was very chaotic.

The Bourgas airport was subsequently closed and all flights were redirected to Varna.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman spoke to his Bulgarian counterpart, Nickolay Mladenov, after the explosion, and briefed him on the situation.

Mladenov, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Health Minister Desislava Atanasova were on their way to the location of the explosion.

President Rosen Plevneliev was already at the site.

Bulgarian security sources said they had received no warning whatsoever from Israeli intelligence regarding the possibility of a terror attack.

Idan Ruben, a local tour guide in Bourgas, told Channel 10 that the bomb went off “as soon as people entered the bus.” He said the bus was filled with 44 people, all of them Israelis.

An eyewitness, Gal Malka, told Channel 2 that she saw someone board the bus before it exploded.

Channel 10 reported that most of the passengers were youths.

ZAKA and Magen David Adom were sending planes to Bourgas, and MDA may try to fly the wounded home to Israel for treatment.

Iran and its proxy, Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah, were the immediate prime suspects in the attack. Israel has thwarted numerous Hezbollah terror attacks in recent years. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station was broadcasting details of the bombing, with excited commentary, on Wednesday evening, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.

In January, the Foreign Ministry warned of a possible terror plot against Israelis in Bulgaria, urging Israelis to take extra precautions when traveling there. It also asked the Bulgarian government to implement extra security measures to ensure that Israeli tourists remain safe.

Last week, a suspected Hezbollah attack on Israeli tourists in Cyprus was foiled by Cypriot authorities. It was unclear whether Wednesday’s attack was related, but the Lebanese terrorist organization swore revenge against Israel four years ago, after the assassination of its terror chief, Imad Mughniyeh, in February 2008.

The Bulgarian attack coincided with the 18th anniversary of the Iranian-Hezbollah attack on the AMIA Jewish community center offices in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed.

Bourgas is the second-largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. It has become a very popular destination for Israeli tourists over the past few years, in the wake of Turkey’s dramatic break with Israel.

Three killed in explosion on Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria | The Times of Israel.

( Make that 7 killed. )

Local media report multiple casualties, including three critically hurt

According to initial reports, an Israeli tour bus was attacked by a suicide bomber at the Sarafovo International Airport in the Bulgarian vacation city of Bourgas.

Israel Police and the Bugarian Foreign Ministry confirmed at least three fatalities at the scene of the explosion and 20 injured.

A Bulgarian website reported that there were multiple casualties in a bomb explosion. Army Radio reported that at least three of the passengers were critically wounded.

The plane from Tel Aviv to Burgas landed at 4:50 p.m. local time and its passengers boarded buses to take them to the Globus Hotel. The explosion occurred in the second bus.

The Bourgas airport was closed and all flights were redirected to Varna.

A decisive blow against Assad | The Times of Israel.

With Wednesday’s blast at the heart of the regime, Syria’s opposition has proven that actions on the ground, not UN resolutions, will determine the outcome of the war

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his defense minister Dawoud Rajha (right) at a memorial ceremony for the 1973 War, October 2011 (photo credit: AP Photo/Sana)

The bloody deadlock between Syria’s government and opposition, which had lasted for 16 months, has been shattered in the space of four days. Fighting reached Damascus on Saturday, and Wednesday morning’s explosion — which killed at least three very senior officials in President Bashar Assad’s inner circle, and injured a score of other security officials — will likely be the final blow to the teetering Assad regime.

In an instant, the blast reshaped the debate on Syria. The question of whether Russia will block Wednesday’s UN Security Council resolution on Syria — Tuesday’s headline — became superfluous, almost ridiculous. The Free Syrian Army, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, has taken matters into its own hands, decisively.

The UN, set to meet in order to renew the mandate of its 300 observers on the ground, could hardly seem less relevant.

More than just a tactical victory for the opposition, the fact that a renegade member of Assad’s security detail (according to preliminary reports) managed to reach such high -ranking officials, in the heavily guarded national security headquarters, constitutes a significant moral setback for Assad’s dwindling circle of supporters.

‘Ninety percent of Syria’s officers are considering defection,’ asserted Nawaf Al-Fares, Syria’s defecting ambassador to Iraq

“Ninety percent of Syria’s officers are considering defection,” asserted Nawaf Al-Fares, Syria’s defecting ambassador to Iraq, serving as a guest expert for Al-Jazeera on Wednesday afternoon. “Syrian citizens know that this regime is finished, that’s it. We are in the final stages of the revolution.”

The regime is not going down without a fight. A Syrian journalist in Damascus told Al-Jazeera over the phone that the regime responded to the National Security Building bombing with “crazy” mortar attacks against opposition forces in Damascus. And it rushed to appoint a substitute defense minister, Fahd Jassem Al-Freij.

The three men killed on Wednesday were among the top officials of Assad’s security establishment. Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha,  65, is the most senior government official to be killed in the Syrian civil war so far. A Christian, Rajha was appointed only last year from within the ranks of the military.

Slain Syrian defense minister Dawoud Rajha (photo credit: AP Photo/SANA)

The second loss will be much more painful to the Assad family. Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, 62, was Assad’s brother-in-law. He, too, came from the military, serving as deputy chief of staff and head of military intelligence. Shawkat was falsely rumored to have been killed by the Free Syrian Army in May. On Wednesday, it was official Syrian TV that confirmed his death.

The third fatality is significant too. Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister, was at the forefront of the battle against the rebels.

The coming days, perhaps even hours, will be critical for the regime’s survival. Preliminary reports from the ground — the authenticity of which cannot be confirmed — indicate extreme anxiety on the part of the military.

The Free Syrian Army claimed Wednesday afternoon that regime soldiers have withdrawn from the Midan neighborhood of Damascus, abandoning their armored personnel carriers at the side of the road.

High-ranking Syrian officers continue to trickle daily across the border to Jordan and Turkey. Now they may start running.

3 key Assad officials killed in Damascus blast | The Times of Israel.

President’s brother-in-law, defense minister and top general die in attack at security HQ; intelligence chief and interior minister injured; Israeli analyst predicts Assad’s imminent demise

A massive blast struck the National Security building in Damascus on Wednesday morning, killing Syrian President Bashar Assad’s most trusted security official, his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat; Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha; and Deputy Vice President Gen. Hassan Turkmani.

As rebel forces celebrated, Damascus quickly appointed a new defense minister, Gen. Fahad Jassim Freij, who was previously the military chief of staff.

Several other senior officials were seriously wounded in the bombing, which took place as the regime’s top officials were holding security talks, and marked the most brazen rebel attack to date on the seat of government power.

Dawoud Rajha and Assef Shawkat (photo credit: AP)

Reuters said it was unclear whether Assad himself was present at the meeting.

An Israel Radio report said many Syrian troops deserted their positions in the capital after the blast. It quoted rebel sources saying troops had abandoned army vehicles and material as they fled.

State TV reported that Assad’s brother-in-law, Shawkat, who held the formal title of deputy chief of staff but who headed the president’s military intelligence hierarchy, died after being hospitalized in critical condition.

Israel Radio said Turkmani, a former defense minister, was an extremely senior and trusted official. The general was at the forefront of the battle against the rebels, it said.

Salman Shaikh, of the Brookings Institution, said Turkmani was “a Turkmen Shi’ite” who provided an “important regime link to both Ankara and Tehran.”

An amateur video posted on YouTube purported to show smoke rising from the building as the bomb detonated.

Interior Minister Muhammad al-Shaar was seriously wounded but in stable condition. Syrian intelligence chief Hisham Bekhtyar, also wounded, was undergoing surgery.

Rebel leader Riad al-Asaad said in a phone interview from his headquarters in Turkey that rebel forces planted a bomb inside a room where senior government officials were meeting.

Reuters reported that the bomber worked as a bodyguard for Assad’s inner circle. There were claims he was the defense minister’s personal bodyguard.

Initial reports had spoken of a suicide bomber. Later reports, however, appeared to confirm that a bomb had been placed in the room where the top officials met, and was detonated either by a timer or by remote control.

Government officials claimed that America and Israel were involved in the attack. Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi went on state TV to declare: “Harming our army and the soldiers and officers and leadership of the army, and even the honorable civilians and state institutions, [is a] hidden agenda, which is to harm Syria from within, so that Syria will bow and kneel, so to serve the American and Israeli mentality.”

The Syrian army released a statement saying its forces will continue to fight. “Whoever thinks that by targeting the country’s leaders they will be able to twist Syria’s arm is disillusioned because Syria’s people, army and leadership are now more determined than ever to fight terrorism … and cleanse the nation from the armed gangs.”

The capital has seen four straight days of clashes pitting government troops against rebels — an unprecedented challenge to government rule in the tightly controlled capital.

Israeli media monitors reported scenes of celebration in rebel strongholds. An Israel Radio analyst said the bombing — combined with key recent defections — marked a massive blow to Assad, signaling his imminent demise.

Rajha, 65, a former army general, was the most senior Christian government official in Syria. Assad appointed him to the post last year.

His death will resonate with Syria’s minority Christian population, who make up about 10 percent of Syria’s population and have generally stood by the regime.

Christians say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people, and they are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Muslim groups.

Wednesday’s attack struck the National Security building in Damascus during a meeting of Cabinet ministers and senior security officials.

Damascus-based activist Omar al-Dimashki said Republican Guard troops surrounded the nearby al-Shami Hospital where some officials were taken for treatment.

Facing increasingly chaotic violence, the UN Security Council was scheduled to vote later Wednesday on a new resolution aimed at pressuring the Syrian regime to comply with a peace plan.

But Russia remained at loggerheads with the US and its European allies over any mention of sanctions and Chapter 7 of the UN charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Besides a government crackdown, rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several massive suicide attacks this year suggest al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the fray.

Activists say more than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

The state-run news agency SANA reported that Wednesday’s blast was aimed at the National Security building, a headquarters for one of Syria’s intelligence branches and less than 500 meters (166 yards) from the US Embassy.

Police had cordoned off the area, and journalists were banned from approaching the site.

Earlier Wednesday, SANA said soldiers were chasing rebels in the Midan neighborhood, causing “great losses among them.” The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said army helicopters attacked the neighborhoods of Qaboun and Barzeh.

Diplomacy so far has failed to stop the bloodshed, and there appeared to be little hope that the UN’s most powerful body would unite behind a plan.

The key stumbling block is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions and tied to Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Russia is adamantly opposed to any mention of sanctions or Chapter 7. After Security Council consultations late Tuesday on a revised draft resolution pushed by Moscow, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Alexander Pankin said these remain “red lines.”

Russia has said it will veto any Chapter 7 resolution, but council diplomats said there is still a possibility of last-minute negotiations.