Syria — A brazen car bombing near Syrian security offices killed 17 people Saturday, the deadliest attack in decades that raised questions about the regime's usually strong grip as the country tries to boost its international profile.
The explosion came only hours after Syria's foreign minister held a rare meeting in New York with his American counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
State-run television said a car packed with an estimated 440 pounds of explosives blew up on a road on the capital's southern outskirts, wounding dozens and shattering car and apartment windows. The charred booby-trapped car sat in the street near a primary school.
The blast knocked down part of a 13-foot-high wall surrounding a security service complex that houses several buildings in the Sidi Kadad neighborhood.
Syrian Interior Minister Bassam Abdul-Majid called the bombing a "terrorist act." He said all the victims were civilians, although at least one of the injured was a traffic policeman.
Officials provided no other details of the attack, which was the worst since a truck bomb killed dozens of people in the mid-1980s.
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bondmen (anonymous) says…
Could it be there were committed believers in the "religion of peace" involved in making and delivering this bomb? I does not appear hate for either America or Israel was the motivation as this action was Muslim on Muslim.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
You should hop right on over to Syria, bondmen, since you have already figured out whodunit, merely on the basis of a few short paragraphs in the newspaper. You're a true genius.