Syrian opposition leader says Assad’s regime ‘trying to kill’ peace plan

The leader of the opposition Syrian National Council on Friday accused the Syrian regime of trying to destroy the U.N.-brokered peace plan aimed at ending 14 months of conflict.

“The regime is now trying to kill this (Kofi) Annan plan, and by a new technique which is terrorism,” SNC president Burhan Ghalioun said, a day after suicide bombers killed 55 people in Damascus.

Ghalioun was adamant that Assad’s government was behind the attacks, which also wounded nearly 400 people and said they were colluding with outside bodies.

“The regime has operated with very closely with al-Qaeda and Iraq,” he told reporters, adding that the bombings marked a change in tactics.

“We have to notice the timing of these bombings, the bombings started almost as soon as the regime removed heavy forces from the cities, we think there is a connection,” he said.

World powers seeking to halt Syria’s unrest condemned the Damascus attack and urged all sides to adhere to a cease-fire brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

The Obama administration condemned the attack and expressed concern that al-Qaeda may be increasingly taking advantage of the country’s prolonged instability.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that U.S. intelligence indicates “an al-Qaeda presence in Syria,” but said the extent of its activity was unclear.

“Frankly we need to continue to do everything we can to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to exert there,” Panetta said. He also lamented that a month of efforts to implement a U.N. cease-fire plan haven’t worked.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said “the onus is on the Syrian authorities to implement a full cease-fire and begin the political dialogue required by the Annan plan,” while the U.N. Security Council said in a statement that “any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivation.”

Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of a team of observers overseeing the cease-fire, toured the site and said the Syrian people do not deserve this “terrible violence.”

“It is not going to solve any problems,” he said. “It is only going to create more suffering for women and children.”

Annan, too, appealed for calm.

“The Syrian people have already suffered too much,” he said in a statement.

The blast was the largest and most deadly yet in a series of bombings targeting state security buildings since last December. Most of these have been in Aleppo and Damascus, Syria’s two largest cities, which have generally stood by Assad since the popular uprising against his rule broke out in March 2011.