Syria hunts for Damascus bombers

Counter-terrorist officers in Syria on Sunday hunted for those responsible for a car bomb attack that killed 17 people in Damascus, one of the deadliest attacks in the country in more than a decade.

The bombing Saturday near a Shi'ite shrine in the Syrian capital, which left 14 people wounded, drew condemnation from around the world, including from the United States, which has repeatedly accused Syria of fuelling unrest in Iraq.

The car packed with 200 kilogrammes of explosives blew up near a security checkpoint on a road to Damascus airport in what Interior Minister General Bassam Abdel Majid described as "a terrorist act".

All the casualties were civilians, he told state television.

"A counter-terrorist unit is trying to track down the perpetrators," he said.

The rare attack in a country known for its iron-fisted security struck the teeming neighbourhood of Sayeda Zeinab, the state-run SANA news agency said.

The district draws tens of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon each year to pray at the tomb of Zeinab, daughter of Shi'ite martyr Ali and granddaughter of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

"It felt like an earthquake. The force of the explosion threw me out of bed," one man who lives near the scene told state television.

"Thank God this was Saturday. The catastrophe would have been bigger if the attack had taken place on Sunday when schools were open."

Another man said the blast was heard some 10 kilometres away.

The attack prompted the US State Department to announce it was temporarily closing its consular section in Damascus for all but emergency services for American citizens. The Damascus Community School was also shut.

The facilities will be closed "in light of heightened security", but will reopen on Oct. 5 following the Eid Al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, spokesman Rob McInturff said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the bombing as "concerning".

"This attack is particularly abhorrent as it comes during the holy month of Ramadan. We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

Gordon Duguid, another State Department spokesman, said there was no evidence any US citizens were killed or injured in the incident, or of specific threats against the American community or embassy in Damascus.

Neighbouring Lebanon, which has been riven by tensions between pro- and anti-Damascus factions, also condemned the bombing, as did the UN Security Council, Arab and European states, and Syrian allies Iran and Russia.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI branded the bombing a "vile terrorist attack".

The UN Security Council "underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice and urged all states to cooperate actively with Syrian authorities".

The Council, in a statement, said that "all acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivation".

In a separate statement, UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for those responsible "to be brought to justice".

The exiled head of Syria's banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, said the attack could be the work of extremist groups or part of a "struggle between security forces".

"The security agencies have set up terrorist groups and sent them to neighbouring countries like Lebanon and Iraq. I don't rule out that they have slipped from their control and are carrying out such acts," he told newswire AFP by telephone from Saudi Arabia.

"There is a mood of oppression in Syria and this breeds extremism," he said.

Dubai-based Arab political analyst Fawaz Najia linked the attack to "mounting Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in the region", and Sunni fears of Shi'ite Iran's "penetration" of predominantly Sunni Arab countries.

"A recent report by a London-based Syrian study centre said that Iran was pouring millions of dollars into Syria to convert Sunnis to Shiism," he told AFP.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad hails from the country's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

The blast was the deadliest since a spate of attacks in the 1980s blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood that left nearly 150 dead. In December 1996, 13 people were killed in a Damascus bus bombing.

It was the first attack since February when Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh was killed in a Damascus car bombing.

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