DAMASCUS, Syria — A brazen car bombing near Syrian security offices that killed at least 17 people Saturday is raising questions about the regime’s usually strong grip as the country tries to boost its international profile.
The explosion — Syria’s deadliest attack since the mid-1980s — came only hours after Syria’s foreign minister held a rare meeting in New York with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Government-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 windows.
The blast also knocked down part of a 13-foot-high security wall.
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.
Serious attacks are rare in Syria, a country where the government uses heavy-handed tactics to suppress dissent and keep stability.
But the country also is home to Palestinian extremists and is a close ally of the Shi’ite Muslim militant group Hizballah in neighboring Lebanon. Washington has accused Syria of being a government sponsor of terrorism and allowing Muslim militants to use its territory to cross into Iraq.
Syria denies that, arguing that it has an interest in fighting Islamic extremist groups… >>>
