Syria Defense Minister Gen. Dawoud Rajha, two other top ministers, killed in explosion in Damascus

Updated at 4:53 p.m. Eastern.

(CBS News) LONDON - An explosion inside the Syrian national security headquarters in Damascus targeted ministers from President Bashar Assad's regime who were meeting with defense officials on Wednesday, killing three of the most senior members of Assad's inner circle, including his brother-in-law.

The Syrian Army said Defense Minister Gen. Dawoud Rajha and his deputy, Asef Shawkat, were both killed in the explosion. Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law, also held the title of deputy chief of staff.

According to state-run television, former Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani, who headed Assad's "crisis cell" that coordinated the regime's response to the 16-month uprising, was also killed in the blast.

Other ministers and military officials were seriously wounded in the explosion, according to state media.

From right to left: Defense Minister General Dawood Abdullah Rajeh, Deputy Defense Minister General Asef Shawkat and head of the Crisis Cell and Assistant to Vice President Farouq al-Sharia, Major General Hassan al-Turkmani.

/ SANA

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CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that in spite of increasing attacks in recent weeks, Damascus had remained a bubble of relative normality in Syria. Wednesday's crippling blow, however, will almost certainly put an end to that image - even among those regime supporters who have tried to ignore the encroaching reality.

Fierce gun battles and other explosions were reported around the capital following the attack on the security headquarters, including at least four blasts reported near military installations in Damascus.

"The attack makes Syria, its armed forces, people and leadership, more determined to stand up to terror groups and amputate the arm of anybody who seeks undermine Syrian security," the army said in a statement.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the situation in Syria is "rapidly spinning out of control" and "it is more essential than ever" for the international community to broker a peaceful transition of power.

To turn up the heat, the Obama administration announced financial sanctions on many top members in Syrian President Bashar Assad's government just hours after the bombing, targeting the prime minister and 28 other Cabinet ministers and senior officials.

Assad made no official comment and his whereabouts were unclear. But state TV reported that he named Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij, formerly the Army chief of staff, as the new defense minister

Opposition leader Kamal al-Labwani told al-Arabiya, a pan-Arab satellite channel, that a member of the rebel Free Syrian Army planted a TNT and C-4-based device inside the building ahead of the meeting, and then detonated the bomb remotely before fleeing to safety. There were conflicting claims, however, from other opposition figures, some of them claiming a suicide belt had been used in the attack.

Omar Shawaf, a member of the Syrian National Council, told the AP from Turkey that the attack shows no one in the Assad regime is safe.

"The hands of the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army can reach anyone inside Damascus," he said.

Reporting from the scene of the explosion, CBS News' George Baghdadi said the blast did not appear to be very large. There have been previous bomb attacks inside Syria targeting regime officials, but they have been much larger explosions and targeting much lower-ranking members of the government and security forces.

The national security headquarters is among the most tightly secured buildings in Damascus. If rebel forces did in fact remotely detonate a bomb, the individual who planted the device likely was an insider. Officials told Al Jazeera that the person who planted the device was one of the cabinet member's personal bodyguards.

The armed uprising against Assad's regime has intensified rapidly in recent weeks, with mounting military and political defections eroding his family's long-time grip on power as rebel forces engage his troops more frequently in Damascus, the president's seat of power.

The Free Syrian Army announced in a statement on Monday the launch of an offensive dubbed "the Damascus volcano and earthquakes of Syria," reports CBS News' Khaled Wassef.

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[Verizoncustomer2012]

complicate

[greenj76]

As a result of the Arab Spring spreading across the Middle East, the people of Syria have become a major threat to the Syrian government led by Bashar Assad who actually followed his father's 40 year tenure as president of Syria. The opposition has suffered over 19,000 deaths in their struggle to bring down President Assad but have and are continuing to gain ground. What is now termed a "civil war" has world leaders calling for Assad to step aside which he has refused to do.

These same world leaders are mostly standing by and watching this horrific conflict seemingly unable to decide what action to take. Meanwhile, the Assad regime continues to fight on which is actually setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

The ancient Jewish prophet, Daniel prewrote history 2500 years ago when he laid out the scenario for the end of times. In Daniel 11:40 it states that the King of the North will be the leader to take a coalition of nations into Israel to destroy the Jewish state. The King of the North, defined in Daniel 11 verses 5 and following, is the nation of Syria today. Actually, Syria will make the first move against Israel followed by an alignment of nations which are mentioned in Daniel 11:40-43, Ezekiel 38, and Psalm 83. The end result of this attack on the Jewish state will be death for the attacking nations, Ezekiel 39:1-6.

[Don_Koh]

I'm starting to think that the core of every conflict and violence is triggered and caused by nothing more than the inherent power-seeking, arrogant and power-corrupted tendencies of men. It's so predictable and sad really. Perhaps it's true though, that these top power jobs are cut out for men only, as only they have the wherewithall and skills to lead nations and make such important decisions...

[TimeToEvolve]

When you lay down with dogs, you get fleas. When you are part of a terrorist government and don't try to stop them and you are blown up, "Blame yo'self" - Herman Cain 2012

[Rafterman11]

Wow, shorten that mustache on the ends a little bit and her looks just like ol' Adolph.

[Lucius_Flavius_Silva]

Why is the MSM insisting on leaving out the persecution of Oriental and Orthodox Christians by the Syrian Foreign Mercenaries fighting Assad? Or glossing over Saudi, American, and Turkish provision of weapons...

For that matter, why do we never hear of Israel's many nukes, or the radiation signature reported at the Israeli Consulate in NYC a while back?

Why don't we hear this, if we fear religious zealots and racists - when Israel's leader is a religious zealot and racist?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFr4C2BPLeM


Why, when it was painfully obvious that the Pentagon was purposely stacked with right wing, Likudnik, Zionist Jews under Bush, and that these Likudnik Jews cooked evidence to get the US to topple Iraq out of concern for Israel [not US security] - why did the media so fear to point out that what amounted to a cabal of Israel-First Neocons had essentially hijacked US intelligence and civilian oversight?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/01/lie-factory

http://radicalarchives.org/2011/10/20/lasn-adbusters-helps-you-find-the-jews/

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/9/11:Israel_did_it


The correct and respectable desire to avoid a generalized anti-Jewish antipathy should not obfuscate the obvious fact that a minority of them, fiercely pro-war and pro-Israel, have in large part hijacked US policy.

We ignore it out of PC motives at our considerable peril.

[arc330]

It's about time this carnage hits these maniacs, killing all these women and children, the freedom fighters need truck loads of RPG's to destroy those Russian helicopters and tanks and take over this Assad and his whole gang of killers, out right death is too good for them they should all be subjected to the same torture the Government backed militia is doing to the people in the surrounding villages. what is wrong with the world powers just letting this Hitler carry on ?

[Mikey_Mo]

Rest In Piece and my condolences to family and friends. ;o|

[arc330]

Yea right, may he roast in hell for eternity, condolences to all the women and children and babies the Assad death squads had killed and hacked to pieces in the villages, every one of these Government killers should suffer the same way.

[Calltwoarms]

Russia is now faced with the reality of the loss of their naval base and we'll so how they advise Assad to react. This isn't Assad's thinking behind these slaughters it's the Russians. Cold blooded murderers from the Kremlin are guiding the policy of Assad's regime. This is what happened in Chechnya as well. Slaughter and unspeakable brutality.

[Nikos_Retsos]

The killing of Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Dawoud Rajiha in Damascus should give Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov the idea that Russia's policy on Syria is becoming a disaster that Russia will come to regret dearly. Lavrov's stated bravado "The Syrian rebels cannot defeat the Syrian Army" sounds quite loony now, as the Syrian rebels can bomb the Syrian Defense Ministry in Damascus! And the recent downing of a Syrian Army helicopter proves that the Rebels have now shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, as well as anti-tank missiles, and vast quantities of explosives from the Sunni Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, etc.

There is no doubt the U.S. and its Arab allies are determined to break the Russian, Syrian and Iranian axis of power, and install a pro-U.S. Sunni puppet regime in Syria. Russia had a chance to ease Assad out with a soft internal coup, and have replaced him with other acceptable pro-Russian Syrian leaders. I cannot believe the foolishness of the Russian leadership to bet everything on the leadership of the nerdy, inept, and hereditary Bashar Assad. It is just mind-boggling!

I hope Vladimir Putin wakes up now and realizes that the Russian Foreign Ministry needs a complete makeover - not just "Yes" men lamenting about "U.S. blackmail!" Russia has boxed itself into Assad's Pandora's Box, and its policy in Syria will share Assad's fate! And that is a colossal mistake! Nikos Retsos, retired professor

[seeingeyenavalbase]

Putin will be difficult to "awake." As Assad is his father's son, and not grown as a man, so too is Putin his father's son, springing from the body of the KGB. They are men of the past. Sociopathic men who believe that might makes right. They are more intelligent "Idi Amins" who must and do answer to a more politically correct world - so they must act with the appearance of legitimacy. Both men have the mindset and worldview of dictatorships by the powerful over the weak.