Syrian Baath Party Builiding 'Hit By Rockets'

Source: London Telegraph
Josie Ensor

Syrian Army defectors say they launched a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a Baath Party building in Damascus on Sunday, in the first insurgent attack inside the Syrian capital since the uprising began. 

Witnesses reported hearing two explosions before seeing smoke rising and fire trucks rushing to the scene early this morning.

It is thought the attack was carried out just before dawn when the building was mostly empty. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Thabet Salem, a journalist who lives close the party building, told Al Jazeera: "This is a clear-cut escalation of what's going on ... It will bring us into a dangerous phase."

The Free Syrian Army is a rag-tag group of defectors who have taken up arms against state security forces. Last week they claimed responsibility for an attack on an air force intelligence base on the outskirts of Damascus.

The Arab League today rejected amendments proposed by Syria to a peace plan to end the crisis in the country, which has so far claimed the lives of at least 3,500 people.

Flying in the face of the League's peace plan, a defiant President Bashar Assad said over the weekend he was prepared to fight and die for Syria if faced with foreign intervention, while calls for an end to the government crackdown seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, as violence overnight showed no sign of abating.

Among the dead from Saturday were four intelligence agents killed by gunmen who raked their car with gunfire, and two defecting soldiers who died in clashes with regular troops in the central town of Shayzar, human rights campaigners said.

With rebel troops inflicting mounting losses on the regular army, Turkey and the United States both raised the spectre of civil war and Russia called for restraint.