...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
, the capital of violence-wracked Syria.
"We categorically condemn this attack," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told news hounds.
While she would not say who might have been responsible, Nuland said "we do not think violence of any kind at anybody's hands is the right answer to the problems in Syria."
"The right answer is for a democratic transition of power, for Assad to step aside and for a national dialogue to begin," Nuland added.
The bombing killed 26 and maimed dozens of mostly civilians, state media said, blaming "terrorists" for the second such attack on the city in two weeks.
The bomber went kaboom!" at 10:55 am (0855 GMT) in the historic Midan quarter in a crowded area near a school, Interior Minister Lieutenant General Mohammad al-Shaar was quoted as saying by the SANA news agency.
The Moslem Brüderbund, which accused
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
's regime of orchestrating the December 23 twin suicide kabooms in Damascus that killed 44, leveled a similar charge over Friday's bombing.
"We hold the regime, its agents and its gangs, fully responsible for this crime," the Brotherhood said in a statement received by Agence La Belle France Presse.
Syrian state media have circulated gruesome images of rescuers gathering body parts and placing them in plastic bags, in an area where damaged cars and buses were splattered with blood.
Angry residents shouted and denounced the bombing as the work of "terrorists."
The December 23 bombings sparked claims and counter-claims over the perpetrator, with the authorities blaming al-Qaeda and the opposition accusing the regime.
Friday saw similar counter-accusations, with the ruling Baath party calling the attacks "a terrorist act that is a part of the plot hatched against Syria," in a statement broadcast on public television.
The plot, it said, "coincides with the statements made by opposition groups and by French and American officials."
But the Brotherhood swiftly called for an international and Arab probe, claiming the attack benefited the regime.
"The killings in Syria will continue and the Syrian regime will keep hiding behind al-Qaeda and the hard boyz ... unless someone confronts the regime and takes it to account for its crimes," said the Brotherhood.
"They are the only ones who have the tools and are capable of doing it," it said.
Leb's Hizbullah accused the "terrorist" United States of being behind the bombing.
"This terrorist crime targeting the heart of the Syrian capital is the second installment of a plan by the evil force, the United States, to punish Syria for standing by the Resistance
That'd be the Hezbullies, natch...
against the Zionist enemy," a statement by the group said.
It said the bombings aimed to compensate for Washington's "humiliating withdrawal" from Iraq.