SALON

Thursday, Jun 14, 2012 9:15 AM UTC

Syria: Car bomb explodes in Damascus suburb

By

Topics: From the Wires,

BEIRUT (AP) — A suicide bomber detonated his car packed with explosives in a Damascus suburb on Thursday, wounding 10 people and damaging one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, Syria’s state-run news agency and witnesses on the scene said.

The golden-domed Sayyida Zainab shrine attracts tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims from around the world every year who come to visit the tomb, which is believed to house the remains of the granddaughter of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

The site is popular with Iranian and other Shiite pilgrims and tourists.

Witnesses on the scene said the bomber detonated his van in a parking lot about 50 meters (yards) from the shrine. Guards tried to stop him from getting into the area but he pushed through, they said, setting the explosives off inside the lot. The blast shattered the shrine’s windows and knocked down chandeliers and electric ceiling fans and caused cracks in some of its mosaic walls.

Six tourist buses and more than 30 cars and a small police bus also were damaged.

It was not immediately clear whether the shrine was the intended target. The site of the blast is only 15 meters (yards) from a police station, which may have been the target. Several bombings in the past few months have targeted security buildings and police buses.

Car bombs and suicide bombings have become common in Syria as the 15-month uprising against President Bashar Assad becomes increasingly militarized.

As the violence grows more chaotic, it is difficult to assign blame for much of the bloodshed. Western officials say there is little doubt that Islamist extremists, some associated with the al-Qaida terror network, have made inroads in Syria as instability has spread.

“I worked for 10 years before I was able to buy this car,” said Amin Daoud, a 35-year-old laborer at the scene of the explosion. “I parked it here last night and now it’s totally destroyed.”

On Thursday, rebels reportedly clashed with government forces in several parts of the country and troops continued to pound rebel-controlled areas in the central province of Homs.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three civilians were killed overnight in clashes at the entrances of the Jouret el-Shayyah neighborhood in Homs city. Another died in the rebel-held town of Rastan north of Homs, which has been under constant and intense fire from regime forces for days.

Syrian forces on Wednesday overran a mountain enclave near the Mediterranean coast, seizing the territory back from rebels after battles that raged for eight days.

State television said regime forces had “cleansed” Haffa of “armed terrorist groups” and the Foreign Ministry urged U.N. observers to immediately head there “to check what the terrorist groups have done.”

U.N. observers did not go to Haffa on Wednesday and are assessing the situation to determine when they can successfully reach the town, U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Kieran Dwyer said. On Tuesday, an angry crowd hurled rocks and sticks at the U.N. mission’s vehicles, forcing them to turn back. None of the observers was hurt.

Sausan Ghosheh, a spokeswoman for the observers, said they have been trying to reach Haffa since June 7.

With the bloodshed ramping up, France on Wednesday joined the U.N. peacekeeping chief in declaring Syria was in a state of civil war.

“When many groups belonging to the same people tear each other apart and kill each other, if you can’t call it a civil war, then there are no words to describe it,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a news conference in Paris.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry expressed “astonishment” over the claims Wednesday.

“Syria is not witnessing a civil war but rather an armed conflict to uproot terrorism and confront killings, kidnappings, bombings … and other brutal acts,” the ministry said.

Syrian authorities characterize rebels as terrorists and armed gangsters, and the uprising as a foreign plot to destabilize the country.

Activists say some 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

__

Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.

More Zeina Karam.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
GOP opposes right to vote - Iraq's new constitution has something America's doesn't: The right to vote. Republicans want to keep it that way
21 points22 points | 5 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of all Americans struggle to afford food
24 points25 points | 6 comments
vote
Brad Pitt keeps breaking his silence on how boring marriage to Jennifer Aniston was
15 points16 points | 26 comments
vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
31 points32 points | comment
vote
Journalists file suit against Manning trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
18 points19 points | 1 comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations