Damascus - A car bomb in the Syrian capital Damascus killed
at least 17 civilians and wounded 14 other persons Saturday morning
in an attack which the government condemned as a 'cowardly act.'
The bomb, which exploded near a secret service facility, was
believed to be targeting a senior intelligence official who was in
the building at the time, Lebanese media reported.
There were no immediate reports whether this person was killed or
injured.
Witnesses in the area, however, said some of the killed were
intelligence men in plain clothes who were killed near the secret
service headquarters.
The Syrian news agency SANA said earlier the bomb went off near
the busy Sayyida Zainab district at 8:45 am.
Both SANA and Lebanese media reports said the car was rigged with
200 kilograms of explosives.
'This is a cowardly act and it took place in a crowded area,
killing 17 and wounding 14,' Syrian Interior Minister Colonel Bassam
Abdel Majid told Syrian television.
He said an investigation had been launched to find the culprits.
A Syrian witness at the scene told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa
that the vehicle was immediately removed. Anti-terrorism experts were
at the scene and had cut all roads leading to the area, the witness
said. Houses in the area are also being searched for suspects.
The blast was so strong that it was heard in neighbourhoods around
the city far from the scene.
The Sayyida Zainab mosque, dedicated to a granddaughter of the
Prophet Mohammed, is located in the area and is visited by Shiite
Pilgrims.
The Syrian source near the scene told dpa that some of the wounded
were from Iran. Iranians are frequent visitors to the famous Shiite
shrine.
In recent years, many Shiite refugees from Iraq have settled near
the mosque, which is close to the road to the city's international
airport.
Hassan Abdel Azim, spokesman of the opposition reformist Damascus
Declaration group, told al Jazeera TV that the Syrian opposition
condemns the explosion and regards it as 'an act of terrorism.'
He said that Damascus Declaration and the democratic opposition in
Syria reject any violent act and work for a peaceful, secured
democratic change in the country.
Abdel Azim called on the regime to open up to the Syrian society
so as 'to remove any tense and to accomplish the national unity.'
The last large blast in Damascus occurred in February, when
Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah was killed. The Lebanese militant
had been sought by the United States as a dangerous terrorist.
The US and Israel charge Syria with supporting Hezbollah and
radical Palestinian groups.
In contrast to such neighbours as Lebanon and Iraq, bomb attacks
are rare in Syria, with its extensive secret service network.
Critics of President Bashar al-Assad have alleged after previous
attacks that the secret service itself had orchestrated them in order
to give the impression that Syria itself was threatened by Islamic
terrorists.
In recent weeks, the Iraqi government repeatedly stressed that
Syria had changed its policies and was now making efforts to prevent
the movement of terrorists into Iraq via the two countries' border.
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