2008 Damascus car bombing

The attack followed two politically motivated assassinations in Syria that occurred in 2008. The first took place when Hezbollah member Imad Moughniyah was killed by a car bomb in February 2008. The second occurred only a month before the car bombing in Damascus, when General Mohammed Suleiman, a high-ranking aide to President Bashar al-Assad was killed in Tartous. Syria also experienced riots at a prison near Damascus earlier in the year. These events were all highly irregular, as Syria maintains a generally well-held grip on internal security. ==Target==

Though the blast was believed to be targeted towards a senior intelligence official, only civilians were killed. Asharq Alawsat reported that a brigadier-general was killed, and that the building was used by the Palestine branch of Syrian Military Intelligence. The official SANA news agency said authorities were conducting DNA tests to identify the attacker and that several people have been detained in connection with the attack. According to their report, the attacker belonged to a Muslim extremist group and that the car crossed into Syria from a neighbouring Arab country. A witness had told the Reform Party of Syria that the blast occurred after the car pulled out of a car depot belonging to the Palestine Branch, a group that is part of Syrian Intelligence. Sources have said the car was fitted with the explosives while inside the depot, leading to speculation the explosion was a 'work accident.' The party reported on their website that most of those killed in the bombing were intelligence officials, contrary to government claims that all of the casualties were civilian. ==Perpetrators==

In November 2008, Syrian television aired the purported confessions of 10 radicals for their role in the bombing. They were all members of the Fatah al-Islam group, an al-Qaeda-inspired organisation based in northern Lebanon. Among them was Wafa Abssi, daughter of Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker al-Abssi. The programme also said the suicide bomber was a Saudi national. ==Reactions==

Syrian Interior Minister Bassam Abdel Majeed condemned the car bombing as a "cowardly terrorist act.", Russia, France and the United States also condemned the bombing. Saudi Arabia, which has long had a tense relationship with Syria, is the only country in the Arab world which has not condemned the bombing. ==See also==