WOW! That was my first thought when I heard the news of the bombing in Syria. So far, the details are sketchy, and I don't trust the anglo corporate media one bit, but I do follow the news on Russian TV - unlike most Western news outlets - which has correspondents in Damascus and what they report is absolutely mind-boggling. According to the Russian TV, an individual associated with the Syrian military managed to bring a bomb not only inside a State Security building, but actually inside the room in which a meeting of all senior Syrian security official was taking place. The results are devastating:
- Minister of Defense: dead
- Minister of the Interior: dead
- Head of Military Intelligence: dead
- Minister of Foreign Affairs: critical condition
- Head of Internal Security: critical condition
And while various Islamists organizations have immediately claimed credit for this operation, I don't buy it quiet yet.
My problem is the same one I had with the murder of Imad Mugniyeh: access.
I have worked in highly secured buildings and I know that it is for all practical purpose impossible to bring a bomb inside such a facility. We are told that the individual who brought the bomb and detonated it must have been very well-known to the services in charge of securing the building. Maybe. But how did he get past the last circle of body-guards?! Surely he was not expected to participate to the meeting, right? So how did he get passed this last, but very powerful, line of defense?
So let me, for a second, indulge in a possibly sterile exercise and ask the following: besides the Islamists, who else might have been interesting in decapitating the entire state security apparatus of Syria?
Israel and/or the US? Maybe, but how could they possibly have that kind of access? For all the propaganda, the US and Israeli intelligences services are rather mediocre and are not nearly as well connected as they like to have people believe.
Maybe Hezbollah, Iran or Russia got really fed with the the dimwits who are clearly unable to handle the insurgency and they decided to "suggest" or even "help" Assad to get rid of all of them? Much more likely, but only if they used local Syrian assets to make their own "regime change" in Syria and only if they had strong assurances from Assad that he agreed with such a dramatic action and that more competent successors would be appointed.
Now what do we know about the people which were killed. They were all critical regime security officials, that is sure, but I would also add that considering what has happened in Syria over the past 18 months, these people were amazingly incompetent. Now, depending on who is appointed to replace them, might today's bombing not be to the regime's advantage? Think of it: get rid of these bloody, corrupt and incompetant thugs and then blame it on al-Qaeda or some other band of crazies and replace them by (hopefully) more competency successors...
Could it be that Assad is the real organizer of today's bombing? Is it so unlikely that Russia or Iran might have quietly indicated to him that one effective way to painlessly appoint halfway competent people to key positions would be to get rid of the incompetent ones without letting them do like Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass and run away to France?
The above are only musings, guesses and disjointed thoughts, nothing more, and if I am wrong it is probably because no matter how clueless, hapless and dumb Baathists have proven to be everywhere, I just cannot fathom them to be so totally stupid as to let some guy linked to Islamists get inside a security cabinet meeting with a bomb. That just seems incredible to me. But maybe I am under estimating the level of incompetence of the Syrian Mukhabarat agencies.
It will be most interesting to see whom Assad will appoint to succeed those who were killed today. If we have "more of the same" probably followed by a rapid regime collapse I will reluctantly have to admit that the US/Israel/al-Qaeda did somehow succeed in a truly masterful decapitation operation. But if young and competent successors are appointed and if they take proactive action to gently ease Assad out of power while keeping the Wahabi crazies at bay, I will continue to suspect that some real "friend of Syria" masterminded the entire thing.
What do you think? Do you buy the "lone bomber" theory?
The Saker
