Comment - The Damascus December 2009 Bus Explosion December 7, 2009 Alessandro Bacci reports from Damascus, Syria

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Comment - The Damascus December 2009 Bus Explosion December 7, 2009 Alessandro Bacci reports from Damascus, Syria On the morning of December 3, 2009 an explosion occurred to a bus parked at a gas

1 Comment - The Damascus December 2009 Bus Explosion December 7, 2009 Alessandro Bacci reports from Damascus, Syria On the morning of December 3, 2009 an explosion occurred to a bus parked at a gas station in the Syrian capital Damascus. According to Syrian officials three people died in the accident that was due to the explosion of a probably damaged tire while it was being pumped. The Syrian Interior Minister Mr. Said Sammour immediately ruled out a terrorist attack ('There was no terrorism factor behind the bus incident,' he said) and he explained that the three dead people were the bus driver plus two gas station workers while they were inflating the tire. The Minister added to the Syrian TV that the bus was carrying a group of Iranian tourists but that at the moment of the blast the pilgrims were not on-board. Damascus hosts the al-sayyida Zeinab shrine dedicated to the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad and one of the most important worship places for the Shiites. In fact, in every season of the year this area of Damascus - around ten kilometers out of the central part of the city - is invaded by Iranian buses transporting thousands of Iranian pilgrims. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images 1

2 The bus explosion took place as Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was visiting Damascus for meetings with Syrian officials. Syria is the most important regional partner of Iran and the two countries are linked by thirty year of good political relations. Immediately after the explosion and well before the declarations of the Interior Minister the common idea was that what happened was probably the explosion of a bomb. \ The images of the blast showed a bus badly damaged in its rear part with clear signs of fire. In addition to this, several witnesses suggested that it was not a tire explosion but the explosion of a bomb killing at least six people and causing some damages to the nearby buildings. One report from the Al-Manar TV (managed by Hezbollah) claims the blast was caused by a gas canister in a passenger's luggage. Reuters had been told by one of the witnesses that body parts were scattered around the bus. A member of one of the Western embassies speaking under condition of anonymity had the opportunity to see the damaged bus and explained that according to him the explosion of a bus would have never being capable of damaging so badly the rear part of the bus. It is so quite possible that instead of an exploding tire the accident had been caused by a rudimental bomb. What is interesting to point out is the fact that the images broadcasted on TV were all related to the bus with no general view of the place of the blast. 2

The al-sayyida Zeinab Shrine - Photograph: Alessandro Bacci After few days here in Damascus no one talks at least publicly - anymore of the accident and in the news the incident is not mentioned

3 The al-sayyida Zeinab Shrine - Photograph: Alessandro Bacci After few days here in Damascus no one talks at least publicly - anymore of the accident and in the news the incident is not mentioned anymore. In general Syria is a very safe country with very tight security controls and where bomb explosions are a rare event but in the last years something started to change not in relations to normal criminal actions but with reference to terrorism acts. As the British newspaper The Guardian says until recently Syrians were used to seeing such blasts on their television screens rather than on the streets of their own cities, which they considered a rare stable point in the Middle East. In fact, Syria in recent years has been hit by bomb attacks. As a simple remainder just in 2008 three important terrorist attacks happened in Syria. In January, General Mohammed Suleiman, a high-ranking aide to President Bashar Assad was killed in the city of Tartous, in February happened the assassination of Imad Mughnyah, a high ranking military commander with Hezbollah (some say it has been the Mossad), while in September a car-bomb attack on a security complex close to the Damascus airport killed 17 people and injured 14. The latter attack was attributed to a Lebanon-based Sunni Islamist group linked to al-qaeda. In addition to these two events, both the USA and Israel completed in the last years some raids against targets in the Syrian territory. Three explosions alongside the Israeli raid on a suspected nuclear facility in 2007 and the late 2008 US attack over the eastern border of Iraq. 3

The internal view of al-sayyida Zeinab Shrine - Photograph: Alessandro Bacci All these events with no doubt in a certain way risk to the derail the process of escaping international isolation in

4 The internal view of al-sayyida Zeinab Shrine - Photograph: Alessandro Bacci All these events with no doubt in a certain way risk to the derail the process of escaping international isolation in which Syria was confined for decades. Assuming the bus the explosion was not accidental and was due to a bomb it is not easy to identify the possible culprits. In fact, there are at least four hypotheses all with a certain degree of probability. They are: 1) Internal or external Sunni extremists linked or sympathizing with Al-Qaeda. They hate Shiites, they hit in the past and they always try to create problems to the Syrian government. 2) Israeli Mossad. In this case the Israeli intelligence service would have decided to send a signal to the Syrian authorities. In fact, the explosion happened in the same moment when in Damascus there was Said Jalili Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. 3) Palestinian factions separated from the Syrian intelligence services. 4) A possible fight between different members of the Syrian security services. Of these four hypotheses probably the first one is the most plausible. The Syrian authorities are really scared by the dangers of the Sunni extremism. The father of Bashar Assad destroyed Sunni extremists in the 1980s in particular thanks to the February 2, 1982 Hama Massacre when the Syrian army bombarded the city of Hama. This city was at that time a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood that had started to wage an armed rebellion against the President 4

5 Hafez al-hassad. Between 7,000 and 40,000 people died and large areas of the old city were destroyed. After the Hama uprising, the Islamist insurrection was defeated, and since then the Muslim Brotherhood has operated in exile while other factions surrendered or slipped into hiding. But now there are signs that the movement is rising one more time. In the same time Shiite power increased in Syria thanks to the Iranian influence and Hezbollah although it needs to be underlined that Syria s Shia population is very small, around 13%, of whom many are the not very religious Alawis. A good possibility is that the bus explosion is linked still in relations to hypothesis A to militants locally based that operate independently from external militants or powers. This possibility is well supported by the fact that the explosion was very rudimental. Syria in the last years facilitated a lot the passage into Iraq from its borders of Sunni combatants desiring to fight in the Iraqi insurgence. These people going back and forth from Syria to Iraq now strongly criticize two points: Sunni s Syria Alliance with Shia Iran and the rapprochement with the West the President Bashar Assad is trying to implement. Inside hypothesis A the involvement of external forces is less credible because Syria is recently obtaining positive successes in international politics and is escaping its decades-long international isolationism. Recently, it is has been implemented a détente with Saudi Arabia (with which the relations were strained in 2008) and in addition to this, in Lebanon the new-formed government now includes pro-syrian elements. In other words, the possible involvement of external backers for terrorist attacks in Syria is decreasing in the last year. All this said, it is true that following the bloodshed events of the last two years mentioned above are now well understandable the fears that the President Assad and the government have in relations to the future Syrian political development. In the short term the Syrian regime may use the last-two-year explosions to bring about two actions. Firstly, Syria could portray itself as a victim of the Sunni extremism and in this way continuing to march through the international political rehabilitation path and secondly, it could control in an even stricter way its own Syrian population. The problem instead may linger in the long term when it will be completely understood that this tough and harsh way of governing Syria is providing good results with reference to petty crime but no positive results at all in dealing with terrorism. Syria is becoming more and more a sort of chessboard where different radical groups risk fighting each against the others. A good idea could be for the President Bashar Assad and for the government to try to reduce the rule by force and try to develop a strategy involving all the different Syrian groups. 5

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