DAMASCUS, syria — The latest suicide bombings in the Syrian capital showed an increasing ruthlessness: The attackers struck during rush hour, setting off one blast to draw a crowd before unleashing a much bigger one, killing 55 people and leaving the street strewn with rubble and mangled bodies.
For many, the al-Qaeda-style tactics recall those once familiar in the country’s eastern neighbor, Iraq, raising fears that Syria’s conflict is drifting further away from the Arab Spring calls for political change and closer to a bloody insurgency.
“Syria is slowly but surely turning into another Iraq,” said Bilal Y. Saab, a Syria expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
The presence of al-Qaeda militants and other extremists adds a wild-card element to the Syria conflict that could hamper international efforts to end it. While world powers and U.N. observers in Syria can pressure the government and the opposition to stick to special envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan, they have no means of influencing shadowy Islamic militants who often don’t claim their own attacks.
Western officials say there is little doubt that al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists have made inroads in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began 14 months ago. But much remains unclear about their numbers, influence and activities inside Syria.
“We do have intelligence that indicates that there is an al-Qaeda presence in Syria, but frankly we don’t have very good intelligence as to just exactly what their activities are,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday in Washington.
Thursday’s twin blasts were the fifth in a string of major attacks in Syrian cities that have clouded the picture of a fight between the opposition and the regime. It was the deadliest yet, in part because it happened on a key thoroughfare during rush hour. No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts.
On Friday, Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition Syrian National Council, accused the government of cooperating with al-Qaeda to carry out the Damascus attacks, using the violence as a way to taint the uprising.
A day earlier, Syria’s Ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja’afari, told the U.N. Security Council in New York that al-Qaeda, backed by unnamed foreign governments, was behind the attacks.
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DAMASCUS, syria — The latest suicide bombings in the Syrian capital showed an increasing ruthlessness: The attackers struck during rush hour, setting off one blast to draw a crowd before unleashing a much bigger one, killing 55 people and leaving the street strewn with rubble and mangled bodies.
For many, the al-Qaeda-style tactics recall those once familiar in the country’s eastern neighbor, Iraq, raising fears that Syria’s conflict is drifting further away from the Arab Spring calls for political change and closer to a bloody insurgency.
“Syria is slowly but surely turning into another Iraq,” said Bilal Y. Saab, a Syria expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
The presence of al-Qaeda militants and other extremists adds a wild-card element to the Syria conflict that could hamper international efforts to end it. While world powers and U.N. observers in Syria can pressure the government and the opposition to stick to special envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan, they have no means of influencing shadowy Islamic militants who often don’t claim their own attacks.
Western officials say there is little doubt that al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists have made inroads in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began 14 months ago. But much remains unclear about their numbers, influence and activities inside Syria.
“We do have intelligence that indicates that there is an al-Qaeda presence in Syria, but frankly we don’t have very good intelligence as to just exactly what their activities are,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday in Washington.
Thursday’s twin blasts were the fifth in a string of major attacks in Syrian cities that have clouded the picture of a fight between the opposition and the regime. It was the deadliest yet, in part because it happened on a key thoroughfare during rush hour. No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts.
On Friday, Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition Syrian National Council, accused the government of cooperating with al-Qaeda to carry out the Damascus attacks, using the violence as a way to taint the uprising.
A day earlier, Syria’s Ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja’afari, told the U.N. Security Council in New York that al-Qaeda, backed by unnamed foreign governments, was behind the attacks.
