At MEES press time on 20 July, it would be an understatement of some magnitude to describe the situation in Syria as confused. What appeared to be a coordinated opposition offensive in Damascus that began on 15 July took an unexpected and potentially game-changing turn on 18 July, when a suicide bombing at a top-level security meeting killed Defense Minister Daud Rajha and President Bashar al-Asad's brother-in-law ʹAsif Shawqat and injured Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim al-Shaʹar and other senior intelligence officials. The opposition's ability to strike at the highest level in the capital itself was undoubtedly a telling psychological blow to the regime, which led US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to declare on 18 July that "this is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control," while for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov "a decisive battle is under way in Syria." Meanwhile the international community remained paralyzed, with both Russia and China vetoing a 19 July Security Council resolution which would have imposed sanctions on the Syrian regime if it did not withdraw its forces from population centers. As fighting continued and even intensified in Damascus, opposition forces were reported on 20 July to have seized control of border crossings into Turkey and Iraq, and while it was possible that the government would manage to weather the storm and reassert its control, it looked almost equally possible that the situation could be unraveling faster than anyone had anticipated.