73 killed in Damascus blast

AP & DPA

DAMASCUS A MASSIVE car bomb explodes near the headquarters of the ruling party in Damascus Syria on Thursday, killing at least 73 people and scattering mutilated bodies amid the smoldering wreck.

Syrian State media put the toll at 60 with more than 200 wounded. However, anti regime activists said 59 died, making this the deadliest attack in the capital since the Syrian rebellion began nearly two years ago. In may, a double suicide bombing killed 55 people in Damascus.

Within hours of the bombing on car, went two other bombs elsewhere in the city and a mortar attack struck the army's central command. Thirteen people were killed by the other two bombs, said activists.

While no group has claimed responsibility, the attacks suggest that rebel fighters who got bogged down in their attempts to storm the capital resort to guerrilla tactics Assad the grip on the capital.

The statement of the day struck a deadliest attack main street on the edge of the Central Mazraa district, near the headquarters of Assad's Baath party and the Russian Embassy, as well as a mosque, a hospital and a school.

TV footage of the blast site showed firefighters dousing a flaming car with snakes and lifeless and dismembered bodies blown into the grass of a nearby park. The State news service, SANA, published photos show a large crater in the middle of the rubblestrewn Street and charred cars keep black bodies.

Witnesses on the scene said a car exploded at a checkpoint security between the Russian Embassy and the central headquarters of Assad the ruling party.

Ambulances raced to the scene of the explosion, which shattered windows and sent a huge cloud of smoke visible throughout much of the city, witnesses said.

State TV called it a "terrorist" attack by a suicide bomber.

The regime often refers to rebels fighting to topple Assad as terrorists.

The Britain-based activist group the Syrian Observatory for human rights said at least 59 people were killed, including 16 members of the security forces. The rest were civilians, it said.

State media also reported that the security forces in Damascus had arrested a second, would-be suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives near the site of the bombing of Mazraa.

In the southern city of Deraa, where Syria uprising began almost two years ago, the Observatory said 18 people were killed in an air attack on a field hospital, included eight rebel fighters, three medics, a woman and a young girl.

A video posted online showed the bodies of dead and wounded people on the backs of trucks in loads and moved to a different location.

Some were bloody and had connected heads, while others were carried out on stretchers.

On Thursday said the British Foreign Secretary William Hague that his message to Assad is that "it's time to go." He said that the senseless killing must end through a political process.

He also called on Assad to respond to dialogue offer recently by Syrian opposition chief Moaz al Khatib.

"A political agreement on a transition is the way forward in Syria in order to bring this terrible and unacceptable loss of life," he said.

Khatib has said he is open for talks with the regime as a way of removing the power.

The Government has refused.

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