Dear Joshua,

Correction: the article that you mentioned about the Hariri investigation was not published by al-Akhbar, a Lebanese opposition paper, but by al-Watan, a Syrian newspaper.

http://www.alwatan.sy/dindex.php?idn=42692

Syria is probably fingering the Salafis and KSA ,

THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Syria says ‘terrorists’ coming from outside border
By Albert Aji and Bassem Mroue, Associated Press Writers | September 28, 2008

DAMASCUS, Syria –Syria on Sunday hinted at foreign involvement in a deadly weekend car bombing, with its state-run media saying the objective was to undermine Damascus’ efforts to emerge from years of international isolation.

Saturday’s 440 pound car bomb near a Syrian security complex on the southern outskirts of the capital killed 17 people. It was the biggest — and deadliest — in the tightly controlled country since the 1980s when authorities fought an uprising by Muslim militants.

It also underlined weaknesses in the Syrian regime’s tight grip and the conflicting pressures it is exposed to as it attempts to change course and adopt more moderate policies on its neighbors Lebanon and Iraq.

No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion, which also injured 14 people. Syrian officials have so far avoided accusing any group, saying only it was a “terrorist act.”

The government-owned daily Al-Thawra claimed in an editorial Sunday that recent attacks in Syria were planned outside the country, but did not mention any names. However, the comment came a week after Syria massed thousands of troops on its borders with neighboring Lebanon.

President Bashar Assad warned recently that “extremist forces” were operating in northern Lebanon and looking to destabilize Syria, referring to the Sunni militants who have clashed for months with pro-Syrian gunmen in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Another government newspaper, Tishrin, said the bombing was carried out by some parties it said were angered by Syria’s “victorious return to the international arena after the desperate attempts to isolate, besiege and punish it.”

Though Syria has long been viewed by the U.S. as a destabilizing force in the Mideast, Damascus has been trying in recent months to change its image and end years of isolation.

Assad has pursued indirect peace talks with Israel and says he wants direct talks next year. Syria also has agreed to establish its first formal diplomatic ties with Lebanon, a neighbor it used to dominate. It also says it has stepped up efforts to stem the flow of militants into Iraq.

European, American and Arab officials have recently resumed visiting Syria after avoiding it following the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians blamed Syria for Hariri’s death. Damascus denies involvement.

Most recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined the leaders of Turkey and Qatar and came to Damascus to meet with Assad. Hours before Saturday’s explosion, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem held a rare meeting in New York with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Syrian analyst Imad Shueibi says Syria was being punished for its support of “resistance” groups, overcoming its international isolation and opposing U.S. plans in the Middle East.

“All these have pushed various parties to try to toy with stability in Syria,” he said.

Leaders of hardline Palestinian groups such as Hamas live in Syria, which also is a close ally of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. Damascus also maintains close ties with Iran.

Syria, however, insists that it has an interest in fighting Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida. Assad’s secular regime has been battling Muslim militants blamed for recent attacks.

In September 2006, Islamic militants tried to storm the U.S. Embassy in Damascus in an unusually bold attack in which three assailants and a Syrian guard were killed. Three months earlier, a battle between Syrian security forces and militants near the Defense Ministry left four militants and a police officer dead.

Officials blamed those attacks on Jund al-Sham, or Soldiers of Syria — an al-Qaida offshoot that was established in Afghanistan. Militants often denounce Assad’s regime for its secularism and have at times called for its overthrow.

© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Michael Young and his “worries”!!! I do wish to God that his recent worries as illustrated above become true if only to prove that this idiot was right once at least in his lifetime.

Even Al Jarrallah of al Syassah is more “consistant” than this Michael Young..

Imagine what his close ones would be going dealing with him given his melodramatic fantasis and exessively suspicious and creative mind..

Ausama –
I am with you on Michael Young. I have begun to ignore his articles. The same for Juan Cole, except he seems good occasionally for an unusual take.

Syria hunts for suspects in deadly car bombing
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Monday, September 29, 2008

Lamia Radi

Agence France Presse

DAMASCUS: Syria’s security forces were hunting Sunday for the culprits behind a car bombing that killed 17 people in an attack analysts said could have been aimed at splitting the country’s alliance with Iran or deterring it from becoming too friendly with the West.

Saturday’s bombing near a Shiite shrine in Damascus, one of the deadliest attacks in the country in two decades, drew worldwide condemnation, including from the United States which has repeatedly accused Syria of fueling unrest in Iraq and Lebanon.

A car packed with 200 kilograms of explosives blew up near a security checkpoint on a road to Damascus airport in what Interior Minister General Bassam Abdel-Majid called “a terrorist act.” All the casualties were civilians, Abdel-Majid told state television, adding: “A counter-terrorist unit is trying to track down the perpetrators.”

Saturday’s blast was the deadliest since a spate of attacks in the 1980s blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood left nearly 150 dead. It came at a time that Syria has launched indirect peace talks with arch-foe Israel, moved to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon and opened the door to improved relations with the West.

But Syria has also witnessed the assassinations of a top Hizbullah commander and a senior general this year.

The Arab League condemned the bombing as a “a criminal operation that terrorised those who felt secure, but it won’t achieve its criminal goal.”

Ryad Kahwaji, a Dubai-based analyst, said no group could be above suspicion because of Syria’s “contradictory regional position.”

“An ally of Iran, at the same time it is holding indirect peace talks with Israel on condition – according to Israel – that it distances itself from Tehran,” Kahwaji told AFP.

“Damascus as a consequence is trying to reassure Tehran that the peace will not be at the expense of their alliance,” Kahwaji added. “This could be a message to Syria to abandon its alliance with Iran.”

Razzouk Ghawi, a Syrian political analyst, said he believed the attack was a bid to torpedo improving relations between Damascus and Western capitals.

“The latest positive political developments in Syria’s relations, notably with France, strengthen Damascus’ international position and this displeases Israel.”

The attack, rare in a country known for its iron-fisted security, struck the Shiite neighborhood of Sayeda Zeinab.

The district draws tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon each year to pray at the tomb of Zeinab, daughter of Shiite martyr Ali and granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad.

Hizbullah condemned the “atrocious attack,” saying it serves only “the enemy of the ‘ummah’ [nation] in creating chaos and instability in the region,” a clear reference to Israel.

Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was on Israeli and US wanted lists for a string of attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, was killed in a Damascus car bombing in February.

In August, Syria confirmed the assassination of General Mohammad Sleiman, described in some Arab media as the regime’s liaison with Hizbullah and by others as an interlocutor with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been probing allegations that Damascus tried to develop atomic weapons. – AFP, with The Daily Star

Michael Young sounds like a dejected kid.

I’d love to give him a cookie sometimes.

Is president Assad going to address the Syrians and the Arabs?.

Alex,Joshua,

By the way i love the security words , they are unique to Syria , can you have a description of the words after you highlight them for non Syrians to learn about them .

Finally, some sane and objective analysis leaving out the conspiracy theories..

Syria could be paying a price for moderating

The Associated Press
Sunday, September 28, 2008
BEIRUT, Lebanon: A rare bombing in Damascus over the weekend could be sign that Syria is paying a price for moderating its hard-line policies as it tries to boost its international standing.

No one has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s car bombing outside a state security complex which killed 17 people and wounded 14. The Syrians have not directly accused anyone but state-run newspapers suggested foreign involvement — a veiled reference to northern Lebanon which has become a hotbed for extremist Sunni Muslims.

The Sunni militants, sometimes called Salafists, have been blamed for a string of smaller bombings and attacks against the Syrian government and diplomatic missions in recent years. The main group accused is an offshoot of al-Qaida.

The Sunni extremists are angry over the tightening of security along Syria’s border with Iraq, which cuts off their routes to the fight against U.S. forces in Iraq. They also oppose the government’s alliance with Shiite Iran and the strict secular nature of the state.

“Once you have Salafists and Jihadis in your country and when you stop their flow to Iraq and their transit in and out from Lebanon, it is not surprising that such bombings” occur, said Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst and consulting editor at the English-language Syria Today magazine.

Syria has long been viewed by the U.S. as a destabilizing force in the Mideast. An ally of Iran and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, it has also provided a home for some radical Palestinian groups.

But the country is now trying to emerge from years of international isolation, opening up to Europe and engaging in indirect negotiations with archenemy Israel, even while still professing steadfast support for Lebanese and Palestinian militants.

In recent months, Syria has agreed to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time since both countries became independent and has tightened its border with Iraq to control the movement of people and goods. A goal of European rapprochement is to drive Damascus away from its regional ally Iran.

The weekend car bombing could also be a sign of the weakening grip President Bashar Assad’s regime on security and of an emerging power struggle between the regime’s security agencies, analysts said.

Writing Sunday in the independent conservative Beirut daily al-Anwar, Editor-in-Chief Rafik Khoury linked the bombing to “the dangerous scenarios pertaining to the ‘crossroads’ of changes in the region.”

An Israeli Cabinet minister said the bombing may be linked to Syria’s indirect negotiations with Israel.

“There are elements who want to derail this process, mostly Tehran which feels that Syria might be moving toward a peace coalition in the region,” said Isaac Herzog.

Assad’s secular regime has been battling Sunni Muslim extremists for years. In September 2006, Islamic militants tried to storm the U.S. Embassy in Damascus and three months earlier, a battle near the Defense Ministry left four militants and a police officer dead.

Officials blamed these attacks on Jund al-Sham, which means Soldiers of Syria, an al-Qaida offshoot that was established in Afghanistan. Militants often denounce Assad’s regime and have at times called for its overthrow, especially since Syria began cracking down on those crossing the border to reach Iraq.

Despite hosting radical anti-Israeli Palestinian groups, Syria insists it has an interest in fighting Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida and in the 1980s, it cracked down heavily on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Syria is also on poor terms with regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which in the past has supported conservative Sunni groups in the region and takes a dim view of Syria’s alliance with Iran.

Another motive for the bombing could be the rising Sunni-Shiite tensions in the region. The bomb was placed at a highway intersection a few miles from a Shiite shrine frequented by pilgrims from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.

The bombing, last month’s assassination of a top intelligence general in mysterious circumstances and the February bombing in Damascus that killed Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah commander and one of America’s most wanted terrorists, feeds suspicions carried by opposition media that it could all be part of an internal power struggle between the regime’s security agencies.

Norman ,for me it has nothing to do with religious or philosophical belonging ,so i can say that i prefer an israeli gentleman to any muslim with bad behavior.

Syrian bombing: A jihadi attack?
The weekend bombing that killed at least 17 people was the worst of its kind since Syria’s battle with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s and 80s.
By Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 29, 2008 edition

BEIRUT, Lebanon – As the Syrian authorities begin investigating a bomb attack that killed 17 people in Damascus Saturday, initial suspicion points to Islamist militants, either home-grown or foreign.

A car bomb, packed with an estimated 440 pounds of explosives, blew up close to a building reportedly housing the Palestine Branch of Syrian military intelligence. It was the worst of its kind since the violent confrontation between the Syrian regime and Islamist militants of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1970s and early 80s.

There was no claim of responsibility, and in Syria, one of the most opaque countries in the Middle East, there are plenty of potential perpetrators.

“As usual in the Middle East, there are three or four credible culprits and this is what is so frustrating. The region is chronically and increasingly violent,” says Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Center for Lebanon, a think tank. “Who knows who did it, but in a way it’s surprising that no one has tried to do this stuff before because so many people are angry with Syria.”

The London-based Ash-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper claimed Sunday that a brigadier general who was a senior Syrian intelligence officer was among the 17 people killed in the explosion. While the Syrian authorities have said only civilians were killed in the attack, the general’s death, if true, could indicate that the bombing was a targeted assassination rather than a random mass-casualty attack.

Still, initial speculation suggests that those responsible for the bomb attack were Sunni jihadists reacting to a possible crackdown by the Syrian authorities.

The Syrian regime survives through coercion, guile, and force and has enjoyed considerably more stability than its neighbors in the past quarter century. But since 2004, there has been a spate of attacks and clashes between the Syrian security forces and suspected Al Qaeda-style militants.

Some analysts say the clashes, which included an attack on the US embassy in Damascus two years ago, were contrived by the state to win sympathy from the West. Others believe that Syria faces a genuine threat from the region’s jihadists who resent the regime’s domination by the Alawites (an off-shoot of Shiite Islam that Islamic hard-liners regard as heretical), abhor Syria’s ties with Shiite Iran, and oppose Damascus’s indirect peace talks with Israel.

On top of the potential jihadist threat, Syria has been rocked by mysterious assassinations and security breaches this year.

They include the February car-bomb killing of Imad Mughniyah, top military commander of Lebanon’s militant Shiite Hezbollah, and the assassination of a leading Syrian general and adviser to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad who had alleged links to Hezbollah.

“We have extremists in Iraq and in Lebanon. Any one of them can be suspects,” in the Damascus bombing, says Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst. “If an intelligence war has been waged by any of the usual suspects against Syria, we are in for difficult times since security is a red-line in Syria.”

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has repeatedly accused Syria of facilitating the entry of foreign Arab militants into neighboring Iraq and demanded Damascus tighten border security. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, acknowledged to the London-based Al-Hayat daily Friday that the flow of militants entering Iraq from Syria has decreased. She pinned the downturn on US and Iraqi government actions inside Iraq, rather than assistance by Syria.

President Assad last month warned of violence from jihadist militants in northern Lebanon and called on the Lebanese Army to mount a crackdown. Since May, Sunni militants in northern Lebanon have clashed with the small Alawite community, which has close links to the Syrian regime. A reconciliation agreement reached earlier this month has quelled fighting for now, but north Lebanon remains tense.

Two weeks ago, Syria deployed several thousand special forces troops along Lebanon’s northern border, an unusual development that sparked speculation in Beirut that Damascus was contemplating a military incursion into its neighbor. Syria said that the deployment was nothing more than an antismuggling drive.

But Syria’s state-run Al-Thawra newspaper Sunday suggested that the perpetrators of the Damascus bomb attack had come from another country.

“Syrian security is solid, but the region is throbbing with terrorists,” it reported. “We need to protect our frontiers to prevent infiltration by terrorists, explosions, and acts of sabotage.”

Lebanon’s northern border is the favored conduit for Sunni jihadists crossing between Lebanon and Syria. North Lebanon lies close to Syria’s “Sunni belt,” once hotbeds of support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

“If Syria is cracking down on jihadis along the Iraq border and along the Lebanon border, then it would not be surprising if the jihadis strike back,” says Andrew Tabler, editor of Syria Today magazine.

Mr. Idaf said:
“Finally, some sane and objective analysis leaving out the conspiracy theories”

Reading this “”objective analysis””, we find the following NON-conspiracy theories!!:

“The Sunni extremists are angry over the tightening of security along Syria’s border with Iraq,”
So the Sunni extremists might have conspired to do it.

It is “a sign of … an emerging power struggle between the regime’s security agencies”
And “… feeds suspicions carried by opposition media that it could all be part of an internal power struggle between the regime’s security agencies.”
So one of the security agencies might have conspired to do it.

“There are elements who want to derail this process, mostly Tehran which feels that Syria might be moving toward a peace coalition in the region” and “could be the rising Sunni-Shiite tensions in the region.”
So the Shiites backed by Iran might have conspired to do it.

OWait a minute, maybe the “”objective analysis”” is suggesting that all the above elements might have conspired to do it.

IDAF,
WHAT!!! CONSPIRACY THEORY!!!! What conspiracy theory!!
Can you actually find one article with more conspiracy theories than your recommended “”objective analysis””??? Give me a F***ing break..

[…] The Damascus bombing was a message to Syria from the Salafists operating in north Lebanon. The message stated, loud and […]

Michael Young’ grasp on reality is slipping rather alarmingly. The idiot is trying to out-do even the so called US Neo-Cons. Could some capable Beirut psychiatrist try and help him?