Syria Bomb Kills 9, Damascus Blames Foreign Plot
A car bomb killed nine people at a Syrian military post in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Saturday, an attack the government said was the latest proof that an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad was a foreign plot.
The official SANA news agency said the blast had been the work of a suicide bomber, and had also wounded about 100 people, including guards, at what it called military installations.
International pressure and an U.N.-backed peace plan has failed to quell Syria’s turmoil. French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday the peace plan still had international backing, but Washington sounded a more aggressive note saying Assad had to leave power.
Syrian state television broadcast footage of smoke rising over Deir al-Zor, pools of blood amid rubble, the damaged facades of buildings and twisted, smoking vehicles.
Opposition activists said the target was an intelligence base.
“It seems like a well-planned attack. The explosion hit the least guarded rear gate of the Military Intelligence complex … where the operatives keep their cars,” said one activist in Deir al-Zor.
State television called the blast part of a campaign funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to topple Assad.