Terrorists killed in Syria attack

DAMASCUS, Syria — Gunmen attacked a former United Nations office in a diplomatic quarter of Damascus yesterday, setting off a battle with police that pelted nearby buildings with bullets and grenades.

The fighting killed two attackers, a policeman and a civilian, the government said. But witnesses said three attackers were killed and a fourth was captured.

The gunbattle follows closely on stepped-up terrorist activity in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, both U.S. allies, but comes as a surprise because of frosty U.S. relations toward Syria, which is suspected of allowing radical Islamists to enter Iraq to fight American forces.

Syria has not seen such violence since the 1980s, when the government put down an insurgency by Islamic militants.

The vacant building formerly was occupied by the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, which oversees an agreement between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. It was extensively damaged by fire during the gunbattle.

“Unidentified terrorists attacked a U.N. office building in Damascus, and this office is surrounded by many embassies as well,” Syria’s ambassador to Washington, Imad Moustapha, said.

Mr. Moustapha said it was too early to know the motivation of the attackers or whether they were Islamist.

“There was a random exchange of fire, and probably every building in that area was hit by a grenade or a bullet” before security forces surrounded the area and returned fire, he said.

Syria’s official news agency, SANA, quoting a security source, called the attackers “a terrorist band.”

The Al Arabiya television network said there were four attackers. It said three were killed and one wounded. The report could not be confirmed.

After the gunbattle, large crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the damaged building. Youths drove by honking car horns, waving pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad and chanting pro-Syrian and pro-Assad slogans.

In New York, Marie Okabe, a U.N. spokeswoman, said all U.N. staff and facilities were safe and accounted for.

The U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, the capital of neighboring Iraq, was bombed twice after the U.S.-led war last year. The first, on Aug. 19, killed 22 persons, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Witnesses, who said the violence started at about 7:20 p.m. and lasted 70 minutes, gave different reports.

One witness said four gunmen came out of a white van on the main Mazza Boulevard in front of the Canadian Embassy and started shooting indiscriminately. A police car on patrol in the area rushed to the scene and came under fire. The police shot back, and other police and plainclothes security forces arrived, the witness said.

Three gunmen were killed and a fourth was taken into custody, the witness reported. Five cars were gutted, and there was a fire at the building where the United Nations used to have offices. Police explosives experts were brought to the scene to examine the bodies of the dead gunmen to make sure they were not booby-trapped.

Another witness said the attackers were riding in two cars. Two explosions were first heard, and a heavy exchange of fire ensued. More than 15 explosions followed, the witness said.

Syrian political analyst Imad Shuaibi said two men “attacked with hand grenades and gunfire near the Iranian and Canadian embassies.”

Mazza, on the western edge of Damascus, is home to the British ambassador’s home, offices of the Iranian state news agency, the Iranian Embassy and the Canadian Embassy.

British and Iranian diplomatic officials said their embassies were not targeted in the attack, which might fit into a wider pattern of violence in the region.

Jordanian state television on Monday aired a videotape of four men admitting they were part of an al Qaeda plot to attack the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Amman using a combination of conventional and chemical weapons.

A commentator on the tape said the suspects had prepared enough explosives to kill 80,000 people.

Jordan disclosed the plot earlier this month and said it had arrested several suspects. Four other terror suspects thought to be linked to the conspiracy died in a shootout with police in Amman last week.

In Saudi Arabia, a suicide car bomber destroyed a security-forces building in the capital, Riyadh, six days ago, killing four persons and wounding 148.

A Saudi official said authorities had foiled five other terrorist attacks within the previous week. Suspected Islamic militants also killed at least five Saudi policemen this month, and a manhunt is under way for gunmen who have fought police.

Syria has been on the U.S. State Department’s list of terror-sponsoring nations for its support of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah that attack Israel. Syria, though, says the anti-Israeli groups are not terrorist and that it has an interest in fighting Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaeda.