Syria's defense minister and interior minister are among those killed after an explosion struck the National Security building in Damascus during a meeting of cabinet ministers and senior security officials, state media have reported.

Defense Minister General Rajha and his deputy, Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, were reportedly killed on Wednesday in the deadliest assault on government officials since the violence began 16 months ago.

Also reported dead were Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar and General Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister and currently Syria's deputy vice president, who later died of his injuries.

The head of the national security office, Hisham Bekhtyar, was among those seriously wounded in the bombing that took place as ministers and security officials were meeting in the district of Rawda, according to state TV.

The government announced that Fahad Jassim al Feraj had already been named new defense minister.
Rajha, 65, is the most senior government official to be killed. Assad appointed him to the post just last year.

State media said several other participants in a top-level meeting who were wounded in the blast had been rushed to Al-Shami hospital in the capital.

Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut, the capital of neighboring Lebanon, said: "The fact that [the attack] happened near where the president lives is significant."

The explosion came as clashes between the Syrian military and the Free Syrian Army in Damascus entered a fourth straight day.

Fighting was also reported in the central district of al-Midan, where revolution fighters are holed up. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Government forces and tanks were deployed in areas inside and around Damascus following the violence, activists said. Street-to-street battles were taking place across the city, sources told Al Jazeera.

"When you're talking about clashes taking place in at least seven or eight parts of Damascus, then they are affecting the entire city," said Al Jazeera's Nisreen el-Shamayleh, reporting from Amman, Jordan.

"Al-Midan is a very big Sunni neighborhood in the heart of Damascus. Many of the other areas are also close to security installations and government offices and buildings. So these are very significant clashes taking place in the heart of Damascus," she said.

The SOHR said that more than 60 soldiers had been killed in clashes with the FSA fighters in the last 48 hours, but there was no independent confirmation of the claim.

PHOTO CAPTION

Image grab taken from a video on YouTube on July 18, shows one of four burning Syrian army tanks allegedly destroyed by the Free Syrian Army in the town of Aazaz.

Al-Jazeera