Gunmen attack U.S. Embassy in Damascus

Grenades thrown
The three attackers tried to throw their grenades over the embassy’s white 15-foot-high walls, but none made it over. One blast peppered the wall with pockmarks.

Three Syrian security agents were wounded as well as the 10 civilians and the Chinese diplomat who was watching the gunbattle from the rooftop of the Chinese Embassy across the street. No Americans were hurt, and the embassy was not damaged.

After the attack, blood was splattered on the sidewalk outside the embassy, along with the burned-out car used by the gunmen.

The U.S. Embassy has about 40 staffers, but no ambassador. The United States withdrew its ambassador several days after the Feb. 14, 2005, assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a Beirut car bomb — an attack his supporters blamed on Syria. Damascus has denied any role, but the Hariri’s killing further soured U.S.-Syrian ties.

Tuesday’s attack raised the question of how strong militant groups have grown in Syria — where the highly closed government rarely releases information on security issues, making assessing the terror threat difficult.

Tension with al-Qaida
Sunni Muslim extremists such as al-Qaida fiercely despise Assad’s regime because of its secular ideology and because his father, the late President Hafez Assad, led a crackdown on Muslim fundamentalists that killed thousands in the city of Hama in 1982. They also reject Assad’s rule because he belongs to the Shiite Alawite sect of Islam.

Bassem Tellawi / AP Syrian security forces and firefighters gather outside the U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Tuesday after militants attempted to storm the facility.

Assad has warned of an increasing Islamic threat against his country, saying al-Qaida militants are taking refuge in neighboring Lebanon.

But some opponents of his regime have claimed he is hyping the threat to score support with the United States, defuse international pressure and provide a pretext for Syrian meddling in Lebanon. The United States accuses Assad’s government of supporting terrorism in its backing of Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militants.

Syrian security forces have battled several times in the past two years with gunmen believed to belong to Jund al-Sham.

In June, anti-terrorism police fought militants near the Defense Ministry in central Damascus in a clash that killed five people and wounded four. In 2004, four people were killed in a gunfight between police and a team of militants believed to plotting to bomb the Canadian Embassy.

Jund al-Sham was established in Afghanistan by Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians with links to slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Syria is a major crossing point for militants from around the Arab world — including Syria and Lebanon — to slip into Iraq to fight in the insurgency. In the face of U.S. pressure, Damascus has insisted it is doing all it can to stop the infiltrations but that the long desert border is too difficult to seal.

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