SYRIA: Two blasts outside security bases in the city of Aleppo kill 28 people (RTV)

Record ID: 280237

  • Title: SYRIA: Two blasts outside security bases in the city of Aleppo kill 28 people (RTV)
  • Date: 11th February 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF INJURED MEN
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Syrian Arab Republic
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACZITONAUW2BZQC4MMO6BXUN8P
  • Story Text: Two car bombs detonated outside security bases in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday (February), officials said, killing 28 people in the worst violence to hit the country's northern commercial hub in an 11-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
    State television showed blood, bodies and shattered concrete strewn across a street in front of a military intelligence building, and a crater several metres wide outside a security force base in the city.
    A Reuters camera team, later taken to the scenes of the explosions by the authorities, filmed a crater and wrecked security vehicles in one location and the severely damaged security building in the other.
    During the unrest against Assad, the Syrian authorities have restricted access to international media, making some reports hard to independently verify.
    Officials said the blasts were caused by explosives packed in two white minibuses, similar to those used by Syrian security forces. They said the victims included soldiers, civilians and children.
    The explosions follow three suicide bombings in the capital Damascus in December and January which killed at least 70 people. Syria's government, blaming al Qaeda for at least some of those attacks, vowed an "iron-fist response".
    Aleppo had been spared most of the unrest roiling Syria since anti-Assad protests erupted in March, but it has seen increasing protests and violence in recent weeks.
    Reporters on the government-arranged visit saw a heavily armoured vehicle which had been tossed on its side by the force of one of the blasts.
    Windows in the five-storey intelligence building, about 50 metres (yards) from the site of the explosion, had been blown out.
    The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 people were killed in the explosions, adding that most of those killed were military personnel.
    It also said seven people were killed in other districts of Aleppo on Friday, but gave no further details.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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