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Bombs Explode at Damascus School Said to Be a Military Center Blasts Hit Syrian School As War Is Focus at the U.N.
(about 5 hours later)
ANTAKYA, Turkey — Bombs exploded Tuesday morning in a school in the Syrian capital, Damascus, that an activist group claimed was used as a headquarters for the military and for the government’s plainclothes security enforcers. DAMASCUS, Syria — Insurgent bombs exploded at a Damascus school building on Tuesday, and Syrian government shells landed in the disputed Golan Heights region held by Israel, underscoring the Syrian conflict’s growing scope as it dominated much of the discussion on the first formal day of the United Nations General Assembly.
Plumes of smoke rose over the city, and ambulances blared through the streets, but accounts of the toll sharply diverged. The Syrian state news agency said two bombs exploded, wounding seven people and lightly damaging the school. The rebel group that claimed responsibility for the attack said it planted nine bombs and killed senior officers and scores of other security agents. President François Hollande of France called for outside military intervention to protect areas in Syria held by the rebels and told the General Assembly in his first speech there that the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which has been widely accused by Western and Arab countries of brutality in its campaign to crush the insurgency, “has no future among us.”
However, the group provided no immediate proof for that claim, and another activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London, said that 24 people were injured in the attack, most of them soldiers. President Obama, in his remarks to the General Assembly, said Syria’s future “must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people.” But neither he nor Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton detailed new initiatives to address the spiraling violence in Syria, where an estimated 20,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced since the anti-Assad uprising began with peaceful protests in March 2011.
In any case, the explosions seemed to demonstrate the continued ability of antigovernment fighters to strike close to the government’s centers of power, despite the Syrian military’s assault on rebel fighters around Damascus, which has lasted weeks. The school is in a tightly monitored area, near the Palestine Branch of the military intelligence services, known as a center for the arrest and torture of dissidents. “If there is a cause that cries out for protest in the world today, it is a regime that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings,” Mr. Obama said, “and we must remain engaged to assure that what began with citizens demanding their rights does not end in a cycle of sectarian violence.”
A shopkeeper in the area said he saw smoke rising from the school and from other locations nearby. The school, he said, was used as a military base and a barracks for soldiers fighting the rebels in the southern suburbs of Damascus. In Damascus, the Syrian capital, accounts from both the insurgent and government sides said multiple bombs went off at the school. Ambulances raced to the scene as smoke plumes rose above the city, but accounts of the use of that school and the extent of the casualties diverged sharply.
The Syrian state news agency said two bombs had exploded, wounding seven people and lightly damaging the school. The rebel group that claimed responsibility for the attack, which called itself the Grandchildren of the Prophet, said it planted nine bombs and killed senior officers and scores of other security agents who had commandeered the school and were using it as a military headquarters.
However, the group provided no immediate proof for that assertion, and another activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, said that 24 people had been wounded in the attack, most of them soldiers.
The explosions nonetheless seemed to demonstrate the continued ability of antigovernment fighters to strike close to centers of power, despite the Syrian military’s assault on rebel fighters around Damascus, which has lasted for weeks.
A shopkeeper in the area said he saw smoke rising from the school and from other locations nearby. The school, he said, had been used as a military base and a barracks for soldiers fighting the rebels in the southern suburbs of Damascus.
He said he saw about 10 ambulances in the area after the explosions. “Damascus has become a nightmare to live in,” he said. “Checkpoints are everywhere.”He said he saw about 10 ambulances in the area after the explosions. “Damascus has become a nightmare to live in,” he said. “Checkpoints are everywhere.”
A spokesman for the rebel battalion that claimed responsibility for the attack, called the Grandchildren of the Prophet, said it planted nine bombs, including several that it placed under fuel storage units in the school. The spokesman, Nabeel al-Amir, said the mission, which he called a success, had been planned for a month. Elsewhere, heavy clashes were reported between the Syrian government and rebel fighters near the border with Israel. Military officers said mortar shells landed near a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 war. No injuries or damage was reported, but Israeli officials expressed concern about the conflict’s widening reach.
The bombs were timed, he said, to detonate during a weekly meeting, when many of the officers gather for a lecture called “Political Direction.” Mr. Amir said that his group had worked with informers inside the school, and he claimed that the blasts had killed a senior general named Mohamed Othman, as well as other senior officers.
The state news agency quoted General Othman himself as saying such reports were baseless. He was quoted as saying that the school would be ready for students next month. The news agency said he was the director of the school.
Also on Tuesday, heavy clashes were reported between the Syrian government and rebel fighters near the border with Israel, where military officers said mortar shells landed near a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 war. No injuries or damage was reported.
“The shells were aimed at villages inside Syria and are actually part of the internal, ongoing conflict inside Syria,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “Fire from Syria leaking into Israel will not be accepted.”“The shells were aimed at villages inside Syria and are actually part of the internal, ongoing conflict inside Syria,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “Fire from Syria leaking into Israel will not be accepted.”
A Syrian resident who lives near the site of the fighting said it started around 7 a.m., with clashes and explosions near large military checkpoints, as rebel fighters tried to drive government troops from two villages, Jubata al-Khashab and Khan Arnabah, in Quneitra Province.A Syrian resident who lives near the site of the fighting said it started around 7 a.m., with clashes and explosions near large military checkpoints, as rebel fighters tried to drive government troops from two villages, Jubata al-Khashab and Khan Arnabah, in Quneitra Province.
Last week, Lebanese officials said the Syrian Air Force fired missiles that landed in an area near the Syrian-Lebanese border. No casualties were reported. Despite the demands at the United Nations for an end to the Syria conflict, the prospects for a diplomatic solution appear remote.

Kareem Fahim reported from Antakya, and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon. Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem.

Mrs. Clinton met with the new special envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, who represents both the United Nations and the Arab League, a day after he delivered a gloomy assessment of the conflict to the Security Council.
A senior State Department official said the two compared notes but did not detail any new plans for reviving the diplomatic process. “Brahimi is very focused on how you create the conditions for some kind of diplomatic process to unfold,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity as part of the department’s protocol, “but he is also realistic that right at the moment we are not around the corner from a diplomatic process being launched.” 
 The United States continues to oppose military intervention, and the administration sees little hope that Mr. Assad’s strongest backers, Russia and China, are willing to ease their opposition to any coercive resolutions by the Security Council, which both have vetoed three times.
“It’s basically been our view since the third veto by the Russians and the Chinese that the most profitable investment of our time and energy is not at the moment in the Security Council,” the official said. “It’s in supporting the opposition on the ground.”
To that end, the official said, Mrs. Clinton will participate in several meetings later in the week intended to strengthen and unify opposition forces that remain deeply divided.

An employee of The New York Times reported from Damascus, and Steven Lee Myers from New York. Reporting was contributed by Kareem Fahim from Antakya, Turkey, Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations, Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon, Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem.