Syrian opposition suspected of blasting ruling al-Baath party headquarters

PanARMENIAN.Net - Residents in central Damascus woke up at dawn Sunday after hearing the thunderous sound of an explosion, which some Arab TV stations said were caused by two rocket-propelled grenades allegedly launched by the so-called Free Syrian Army at the headquarters of the ruling al-Baath party in al- Mazraa neighborhood.

However, eye witnesses dismissed the allegations as the headquarters seems to be intact, raising probabilities that the explosion, which people could hear from a distance of 500 meters away from the building, might be caused by a sound bomb.

The Free Syrian Army, allegedly army defectors, has recently carried out attacks against an air intelligence base outside Damascus and a pro-government youth group office in northwestern Syria.

The recent attacks have spiked fears that the country might be sliding towards a civil war.

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, "It is not a secret that along with the peaceful demonstrators, whose strivings and demands we support, there is more and more participation from groups of armed people who have an entirely different agenda from reform and democracy in Syria."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lately said that Syria will not bow down as the conflict in Syria as well as the pressure to subjugate the country are set to continue.

"I assure you that Syria will not bow down and that it will continue to resist the pressure being imposed on it," al-Assad told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper here in an interview published late Saturday.

Al-Assad's administration is facing swelling international pressures to end his alleged crackdown on anti-government movement, and internally as alleged army defectors have been carrying out assaults against security and army bases.

Syria has accused armed groups of assaulting civilians and army personnel in the country. It even accuses some Arab and foreign countries of supporting and arming such groups with the aim of toppling al-Assad's rule.

The official SANA news agency said that a delegation representing Syrian artists, economists and popular figures were brutally hit Sunday in front of the Arab League headquarters in Cairo by broad-based opposition activists. Many of them were hospitalized to nearby hospitals in Cairo, said SANA.

Meanwhile, Syria and the AL are studying amendments to the draft protocol regarding the legal status and the duties of the AL mission of observers.

The AL issued on Wednesday in Rabat of Morocco a draft deal to send an Arab mission of 500 observers to monitor the situation in Syria from the ground and gave the Syrian government three days to sign it after it suspended last week Syria's membership in the pan- Arab body, according to Xinhua.