Suicide Bombing in Damascus - Syrian Defense Min. - Assad's brother-in-law reportedly killed, interior minister critically injured.

Suicide Bombing in Damascus - Syrian Defense Min - Assad's brother-in-law reportedly killed, interior minister critically injured.(JPost).HT: Israel Matzav.Syrian state television said a "terrorist explosion" which struck a national security building in Damascus killed Syrian Defense Minister Daoud Rajha and critically injured the country's interior minister on Wednesday. "The terrorist explosion which targeted the national security building in Damascus occurred during a meeting of ministers and a number of heads of (security) agencies," the television.A security force told Hezbollah's al-Manar television station that Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat was killed in the attack. Activists at the scene said that Republican Guard troops sealed off Damascus's Shami Hospital after ambulances arrived with casualties from the explosion. A report from Lebanese-based news channel Al-Mayadeen said that several senior security officials were killed in the explosion. Overnight, the revolt against Syrian President Bashar Assad came within sight of his presidential palace as fighting erupted in major Damascus neighborhoods for a fourth day. An army barracks near the "palace of the people," a huge Soviet style complex overlooking the sprawling capital from the western district of Dummar, came under rebel fire around 7.30 a.m. (0430 GMT), activists and a resident said. "I could hear the sound of small arms fire and explosions are getting louder and louder from the direction of the barracks," Yasmine, who works as an architect, said by phone from Dummar.
The army deputy chief of staff was Assad's brother-in-law.. Assef Shawkat, brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad, was killed in a bomb attack which targeted a meeting of Assad's top security and military officials on Wednesday, Hezbollah's al-Manar television and a security source in Syria said. The security source told Reuters Shawkat died in a Damascus hospital where he was taken after the attack. State television earlier said Defence Minister Daoud Rajha was also killed in the bombing.Read the full story here.