A POWERFUL car bomb has exploded close to ruling party offices in Damascus, killing more than 50 people and causing widespread destruction in the Syrian capital's deadliest attack for more than nine months.
The bombing, which rocked the city centre and sent thick smoke scudding across the skyline, was followed soon after by a mortar attack on a nearby military headquarters.
The attacks came as the opposition umbrella group, the National Coalition, was meeting in Cairo to discuss proposals to hold conditional talks with President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Images of charred bodies lying next to mangled vehicles were broadcast by Al-Ekhbariya state television, which said children were among those wounded as the blast occurred near a school in the central district of Mazraa.
Sirens rang out, and machine gun fire was also heard, as firemen rushed to the scene to douse the flames.
A police official told AFP the car bomb exploded at the 16 November Square near the Al-Iman mosque, where the ruling Baath party's head offices are located.
State television said the blast, which left a large crater in a road, killed 53 people and wounded dozens, making it the bloodiest in the capital since twin suicide bombings left 55 people dead on May 10, 2012.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the toll at 42 dead, including nine troops, and dozens wounded.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the official SANA news agency blamed the attack on "terrorists" - the regime's term for rebels who have been fighting to oust Assad for nearly two years.
"It is terrorism ... Is that what you call Islam?" one of the wounded told Syrian television.
"Is that the freedom you want? Is that the (rebel) Free Syrian Army?" said another man, speaking at the site of the attack.
The opposition denounced as "terrorists" those behind the bombing.
"Any acts targeting civilians with murder or human rights violations are criminal acts that must be condemned, regardless of the perpetrator or the justification," the National Coalition said on Facebook.
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