Suicide bombers hit two security service bases in Damascus yesterday, killing at least 44 people, in attacks the regime blamed on Al-Qaeda but which the opposition said were the work of the regime itself.

The attacks were the first against the powerful security services in the heart of the capital since a nine-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began, and overshadowed new protests.

“The new toll for the two attacks today is established at 44 dead and 150 injured”, foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said, as an advance team made preparations for Arab League observers to oversee a plan to end the bloodshed.

One bomber tried to ram a vehicle packed with explosives into the compound of the General Security Directorate, Syria’s most important plain-clothes security service, in the Kfar Suseh neighbourhood of Damascus, witnesses said.

A second blew up a vehicle outside a nearby military intelligence building.

State television showed pictures of a huge crater at one of the bomb sites and pools of blood on surrounding pavements.

Bystanders were seen carrying away charred and mangled bodies wrapped in makeshift shrouds.

“On the first day after the arrival of the Arab observers, this is the gift we get from the terrorists and Al-Qaeda but we are going to do all we can to facilitate the Arab League mission,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad told reporters at one of the bomb sites.

Asked to comment on suggestions that the bombings had been engineered by the regime itself, Mr Meqdad shot back: “Anyone who makes such allegations is a criminal.”

The opposition group, the Syrian National Council, made just such a claim.

“The Syrian regime, alone, bears all the direct responsibility for the two terrorist explosions,” said an SNC statement received in Nicosia.

“It wanted to send a warning message to the observers for them not to approach security centres.”

The regime is trying to give the world the impression “that it faces danger coming from abroad and not a popular revolution demanding freedom and dignity,” the statement added.