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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Feb 09 2010 23:03 | LAST UPDATED Feb 09 2010 23:03 |
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Counter-terrorist officers in Syria on Sunday hunted for those behind a car bomb attack that killed 17 people in Damascus, one of the deadliest attacks in the country in more than a decade. Saturday's bombing near a Shi'ite shrine in the Syrian capital, which also wounded 14 people, drew worldwide condemnation, including from the United States, which has repeatedly accused Syria of fuelling unrest in Iraq. The blast and other recent attacks were planned abroad, Syrian official newspaper Ath Thawra said on Sunday, while a columnist for Jordan's semi-official daily al-Dustur blamed the bombing on Israel's spy agency Mossad. The car packed with 200kg of explosives blew up near a security checkpoint on a road to Damascus airport in what Interior Minister General Bassam Abdel Majid called "a terrorist act". All the casualties were civilians, he told state television, adding: "A counter-terrorist unit is trying to track down the perpetrators." The rare attack in a country known for its iron-fisted security struck the teeming neighbourhood of Sayeda Zeinab. The district draws tens of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon each year to pray at the tomb of Zeinab, daughter of Shi'ite martyr Ali and granddaughter of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. "It's a US-backed Israeli conspiracy to destabilise the Syrian regime and create enough chaos to produce an opposition that would develop and grow under the sponsorship of Israel and the United States," Hashem al-Khaledi said in an editorial for al-Dustur in Amman. "They seek to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who is seen by the United States and Israel as an obstacle facing their schemes in the region."  CONTINUES BELOW Without making specific allegations, Ath Thawra said the perpetrators of recent acts of "terrorism" crossed the border to carry them out. "Syrian security is solid but the region is throbbing with terrorists," it said. "We need to protect our frontiers to prevent infiltration by terrorists, explosions and acts of sabotage." Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah on Sunday added its voice to those condemning the attack. "Hezbollah strongly condemns the bombing ... and expresses its full sympathies with its brothers in the Syrian leadership, government and people in face of the atrocious attack that only serves the enemy of the 'ummah' [nation] in creating chaos and instability in the region," it said in a statement. The US State Department has closed its consular section in Damascus until October 5 for all but emergency services for American citizens. Saturday's blast was the deadliest since a spate of attacks in the 1980s blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood that left nearly 150 dead. -- AFP TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
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