...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
were aimed at sabotaging peace efforts, as U.N. experts prepared to join a government-led humanitarian mission to devastated protest hubs.
"Yesterday's kabooms were carried out by beturbanned goons supported by foreign powers which finance and arm them," charged Al-Baath newspaper, mouthpiece of Syria's ruling party of the same name.
"The two attacks... aim to disrupt Annan's mission and to foil international efforts to find a political solution to the crisis," it said, referring to U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
peace envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...Two huge kabooms killed at least 27 people and maimed 140 others in the heart of Syria's capital on Saturday, the interior ministry said, blaming "terrorists" for the attacks near police and air force headquarters.
Opposition activists blamed the regime, as in past lethal kabooms in the capital and the northern city of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
Ath-Thawra, another official daily, pointed the finger at Qatar and Soddy Arabia which have called for rebels fighting the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
to be armed.
"The terrorism of Hamad and Saud is not a first. We know their blood-stained hatred, born of hatred and jealousy... We have heard their call, and their incitement," it said, referring to Saudi and Qatari ruling families.