Syrian Bombings Trigger Massive Conspiracy

The magnitude of Syria’s last 24 hours shouldn’t be surprising. Bashar al-Assad’s security forces reportedly massacred a village of people on Wednesday, two days before Arab League monitors were scheduled to arrive, and the first group touched down early Saturday morning. Everybody expected something to happen.

Yet the dual blasts at Syria’s State Security Directorate and a regional military office outside Damascus have taken al-Assad’s delirium to a whole new level.

It’s too tempting to jump as far ahead as the regime has in blaming al-Qaeda for Saturday’s bombings. Rapid precision and condemnation suggests that the government launched a fourth-generation assault on itself. In a statement released soon after the bombings, the Ministry of Interior intricately explained how “a terrorist suicide bomber in a booby-trapped car broke into the main door of the Area Security Branch in Damascus at 10:18 AM.” One minute later, “another suicide bomber drove a booby-trapped GMC 4WD car into the General Intelligence Administration building.”

The death toll sits at 44, many of them civilians, with 166 people wounded.

This horror is exactly what Syria’s government promised, creating the impression that it just delivered. Arab League monitors were immediately ushered to the scene where they were told the bombing “had the fingerprints of Al Qaeda all over.” Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad declared, "On the first day after the arrival of the Arab observers, this is the gift we get from the terrorists and al-Qaeda."

"We said it from the beginning, this is terrorism. They are killing the army and civilians."

SANA state media added, “these terrorist attacks reveal the true face of the plot targeting Syria and its security and stability at the hands of terrorist tools inside and abroad.”

By bombing its own people, Damascus hopes to unite Syrians against the opposition and counter the international community in one strike.

To be safe Western capitals and the UN condemned Damascus’s bombings in overnight statements; Washington is already facing its own wave of online conspiracies. Although these forces have applied counter-revolutionary pressure across the Arab world, they have no reason to organize these bombings. Neither does any branch of al-Qaeda - at least not at this exact moment - and its means would be equally unbelievable.

A conspiracy could pop out of any shadow (Hezbollah, Iran, Turkey, NATO) but al-Assad’s regime has positioned itself as the only beneficiary from Saturday’s terror attack.