DAMASCUS, Syria — A shootout Tuesday has raised fears that Islamist extremism — an enemy Damascus quashed in the early 1980s — may be re-emerging despite Syria’s opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and its staunchly pro-Palestinian stand.
No group has taken responsibility for the attack in Damascus’ upscale Mazza area, but some Syrian officials and analysts linked the shootings to terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Morocco and a foiled plot in Jordan.
“What happened is evidence that the circle of terror is widening in the region,” said Mahdi al-Dakhlallah, editor of the government-run Al-Ba’ath daily. “Logical analysis indicates that extremists are behind these attacks.”
Four gunmen detonated a bomb placed under a car before firing bullets and grenades at Syrian security forces, an Interior Ministry official told the state-controlled SANA news agency. The government said two attackers, a policeman and a civilian were killed.
All U.N. offices were closed in Damascus yesterday, as was the U.S. Embassy, which is not in the same area as the attack.
The violence came at a time of rising Islamic fervor, even though it is discouraged by Syria’s secular government.
The number of veiled women has increased. Mosque attendance has grown. Syrian clerics urge armed jihad in Palestinian areas and Iraq.
Sheik Said al-Bouti, a prominent Damascus cleric, delivered a sermon last year titled “Jihad Will Continue Until Doomsday” and said he “has not found so many justifications for armed jihad … in any era as much as this era.”
Asked by Lebanon’s LBC-TV why Syria would be targeted, given its stand on Iraq and the Palestinians, Lebanese journalist Samir Atallah said: “Principles never protected a country.”
Although Syria opposed the Iraq war and has attacked Israeli policy and supported Palestinians, the country has reportedly helped the United States track al Qaeda-linked militants and patrol its border with Iraq.
The attack is President Bashar Assad’s greatest challenge since he took office in July 2000 after his father died. He inherited an authoritarian regime that has dealt harshly with dissenters, whether secularists seeking democracy or Islamist extremists seeking theocracy.
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