Suicide bombers hit two security service bases in Damascus on Friday killing at least 30 people and leaving 55 injured in the first such attacks in a quarter of a century.
"Several soldiers and a large number of civilians were killed in the two attacks carried out by suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives against bases of State Security and another branch of the security services," state television said.
"Initial inquiries hold Al-Qaeda responsibility," the television added, after AFP correspondents heard two large explosions in the heart of the capital.
Witnesses said the bombers struck in the Kfar Suseh neighbourhood of the city. A car tried to ram its way into a State Security compound, while another car exploded in front of a security service building in the same area.
The blasts came as an advance team was in Damascus to prepare the logistics for an Arab League observer mission to oversee a plan to end nine months of unrest that has killed more than 5,000 people, according to the United Nations.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the observers to vindicate his government's contention that the unrest is the work of "armed terrorists," not overwhelmingly peaceful protesters as maintained by Western governments and human rights watchdogs.
A Britain-based rights group also reported Friday's blasts.
"Two blasts just rocked the Syrian capital Damascus, followed by the sound of heavy shooting in the vicinity of the general intelligence headquarters," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by AFP in Nicosia.
The bombings in Damascus were the first of their kind since the 1980s when then president Hafez al-Assad, father of incumbent Bashar al-Assad, fought an armed uprising by the since banned Muslim Brotherhood.
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