Syrian PM Cheats Death in Car Bomb Attack

According to the Syrian state media, Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Haiqi survived a bomb attack that was targeted at his convoy in Damascus on Monday.

State TV said the Prime Minister was unhurt in the bombing that occurred in the western neighborhood of the capital, al-Mezzah. They also said that the terrorist explosion in al-Mezzah was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister.

Although, casualties have been reported, Syrian firefighters were seen on TV extinguishing burning cars and debris resulting from the explosion.

The Associated Press was told by a Syrian government official (who spoke on the condition of anonymity) that an IED was placed under a car that was parked in the area and was detonated as al-Halqi’s car drove by.

The Al-Ikhbariya media run by the government said that the Prime Minister went into a meeting with an economic committee straight after the bombing.

Director Rami Abdel Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday’s bombing killed a bodyguard of al-Halqi’s, leaving a second bodyguard and the driver in critical condition.

This is not the first time a high official in the Syrian capital has been targeted over the past year. Only last year in July, a blast at the Syrian national security building in the capital killed the defense minister and his deputy during a meeting of cabinet ministers

Then, in December, a car bomb exploded around the Inerior Ministry in the capital, killing several people, and wounding more than 20. The Interior Minister, Mohammed al-Shaar was hurt in the blast.

Ali Ballan, head of public relations at the Ministry of Social Affairs and a member of Syria’s relief agency, was assassinated while dining in a restaurant in al-Mazzeh, earlier in April.

According to a news bulletin, al-Halqi was quoted saying, “these types of attacks are nothing but proof of the discouragement and despair of the terrorist groups as a result of the actions of the Syrian army.”

Bhutto’s Murder Case: Musharraf Formally Accused of Conspiracy to Commit Murder

General Pervez Musharraf, who is under house arrest at his Chak Shahzad farmhouse residence, has been formally charged with conspiracy to murder Benazir Bhutto, who was brutally murdered in December 2007. He will be taken to the anti-terrorist court on Friday.

It has been a month of humiliation for the former ruler who was disqualified from contesting in the upcoming May 11 elections and arrested after returning from a self-imposed exile that lasted for four years.

While Musharraf was president, Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated in a gun-and-suicide attack just outside Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on December, 2007. She was addressing a rally of supporters during her election camoaign before she was killed.

Despite a long running case, no one has been convicted for her assassination. Musharraf pointed an accusing finger at Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud as the one responsible (Mehsud denied the accusation vehemently, but was killed in a US drone assault in 2009).

Bhutto’s death could have been prevented if Musharraf’s government had given her adequate security. In February 2011, the ATC (Anti-Terrorism Court) indicted Musharraf, declared a proclaimed offender 6 months later, and had his property attached to the case due in his absence.