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Mysterious Car Bomb Rattles Damascus

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Los Angeles Times

Published: September 28, 2008

DAMASCUS, Syria - Mystery surrounded a powerful car-bomb explosion Saturday that ripped through a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus, killing at least 17 people and injuring 14 others in the deadliest terrorist attack in Syria in more than two decades.

Security forces quickly cordoned off the area. Witnesses described life-threatening injuries, and the death toll was expected to rise.

Syrian Interior Minister Bassam Abdul-Majid called the bombing a "terrorist act." He said all the victims were civilians, though at least one traffic policeman was injured.
Syrian media quoted sources saying the vehicle was loaded with more than 400 pounds of explosives and blew up between 8 and 9 a.m. in a busy pedestrian area often filled with Lebanese, Iraqi or Iranian religious tourists. The area is near an intersection leading to the tomb of Zainab, a daughter of the Prophet Muhammad who is revered by Islam's Shiite sect, and near a small outpost housing security officials.

The bomb detonated close to an office of one of Syria's highly secretive security services, according to a number of shopkeepers and residents. It destroyed or damaged dozens of cars along the highway, and shrapnel scarred building facades and shattered glass through an entire city block.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The official Syrian Arab News Agency reported that a counterterrorism unit often deployed against Islamist radicals was dispatched to investigate the attack, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni Arab militant groups inspired by or connected to al-Qaida.

The bombing followed two unusual political assassinations this year in Syria, a police state that generally maintains a tight grip on security, and it contributed to a growing sense of alarm about the possibility of internal subversion or foreign interference.

The bombing also occurred less than three months after Islamist inmates rioted at a prison outside the capital, taking hostages and engaging in gunbattles with authorities.

Information from The New York Times was used in this report.

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