The Syrian government claimed that a suicide bomber attacked buses carrying riot police shortly before an anti-government protest was to begin.

Activists pointed to video "mistakenly" aired by Syrian state TV, showing people setting "bags of vegetables" on the street to give the impression that some of the victims were civilians shopping in the nearby market.

Aleppo also has a large population of Kurds, who have mostly stayed on the sidelines of the uprising since the government began giving them long-denied citizenship as a gesture to win support.

[4] The Syrian Interior Ministry reported that, at 9 AM, a white minibus broke through the security barrier at the entrance of a law enforcement building in al-Arkoub district.

[5] Brigadier Firas Abbas told an AP reporter on a government-guided visit to the scene that the minibus made it through one roadblock before detonating near the gates.

[7] The opposition Local Coordination Committees claimed that security forces and Shabeeha killed 12 people at an anti-government protest in the Marjeh district of Aleppo not long after the blasts.

[6] Captain Ammar al-Wawi of the FSA said fighters from his group had a short clash with troops several hundred yards (meters) from the Military Intelligence building about an hour before the blast.

[4] Colonel Malik al-Kurdi, the FSA's deputy leader, said it had been monitoring the activity of security forces and Shabeeha at the Military Intelligence building and a police base in Aleppo on Friday morning.

[6] "When they were gathering in a square to go to the mosques and repress demonstrations, two groups from the FSA targeted the two buildings with small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire," he said.

He claimed they had sealed-off the area around the main intelligence compound shortly before the blasts, adding "We hold the Syrian regime entirely responsible for this explosion".

[6] Abdul Rahman Abu Hothyfa, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian Revolution Coordinators Union, said it was "absolutely the regime" that carried out the attack.