The first sign the regime was behind the bombings was when a top military aide to President Bashar al Assad stopped by al Ali’s office to examine his security arrangements. Gen. Salim al Ali, Assad’s special assistant for Damascus affairs and no relation to Awad al Ali, wasn’t there to urge better precautions. Just the opposite.
On Friday, March 16, Selim Ali telephoned Ali from the Republican Palace, al Assad’s presidential residence. “The street you blocked is to be opened,” Salim Ali told him. “This is an order from President Bashar al Assad.
Awad al Ali kept the barricades in place, and one day later, suicide car bombers attacked two other security installations in Damascus and a third in Tadamon, far from any a security building. He concluded he was the real target.
If he had taken down the barricade, “I and my colleagues would be dead,” al Ali, who has served the opposition coalition as interior minister and acting defense minister, told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member