Khyber News

DAMASCUS: Syrian Defence minister General Daoud Rajha was reportedly killed in a suicide attack on Wednesday in Damascus.

Private television channels reported a suicide bomber struck the National Security building in Damascus Wednesday during a meeting of Cabinet ministers and senior security officials.

Syria's state media reported that defence minister General Daoud Rajha had been killed in the attack. Security officials said that several other participants in a top-level meeting were wounded in the blast and taken to Al-Shami hospital in the capital for treatment.

The blast came as the capital has seen four straight days of clashes pitting government troops against rebels, who are trying to bring down the regime by force.

The fighting is an unprecedented challenge to government rule in President Bashar Assad's seat of power and a sign the civil war is likely to worsen as the regime in Syria struggles to halt the opposition's growing momentum.

Syrian officials have dismissed claims of an all-out rebel offensive. The violence has grown increasingly chaotic over the course of the uprising that began last year.