12.12 The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has just confirmed that Dawoud Rajiha has been killed and many others injured, some seriously. The Observatory said reports indicate it was a car bomb, as windows were shattered in surrounding buildings.
12.06 Reports coming in from Syria that a brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, was also killed in the bomb attack which targeted a meeting of Assad's top security and military officials. Assef Shawkat reportedly died in a Damascus hospital where he was taken after the attack, according to Hezbollah's al-Manar television and a security source in Syria
11.55 This from Telegraph's Foreign Affairs Correspondent Damien McElroy, who is following developments:
An escalation of attacks by the Free Syria Army inside the gates of Damascus has posed the greatest challenge to the regime in the 16-month uprising.
Gen Rajha, was an elderly Christian who was see as an ultra-loyalist member of the security elite. Control of the security services is tightly controlled by the Assad family.
Major Gen Mohammad Ibrahim Shaar, the Interior minister, was forced to go on live television to deny rumours that he had been killed by the opposition in May.
11.50 Reports of a suicide bombing that struck at the heart of the country's security establishment as fighting intensifies in the Syrian capital.
The Syrian defence minister, General Dawoud Rajiha, was killed in the attack.
