Explosion Kills at Least 6 on Bus of Lebanese Pilgrims Visiting Shrines in Syria
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Version 0 of 1. BEIRUT, Lebanon — An explosion on Sunday ripped apart a bus carrying Lebanese pilgrims to Shiite shrines in Damascus, Syria, killing at least six people and wounding 27, official news channels reported. The attack stood out for striking a specific vehicle in a tightly secured area just outside the Syrian capital’s Old City, and speculation quickly rose that Hezbollah fighters could have been targeted, or that the attack was a baldly sectarian provocation. The Nusra Front, an insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for what it called a suicide attack. But according to Syrian state television, two bombs were planted on the waiting bus as passengers visited a shrine in the Old City. One bomb failed to detonate and was defused, the state news media said. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group whose fighters play a growing role in thwarting the nearly four-year insurgency against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, quickly condemned the attack. Hezbollah’s Al Manar news channel listed the names of six dead, all male. The attack came two weeks after Israel killed several Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian general in southern Syria, and four days after Hezbollah struck back by killing two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack from Lebanon. On Friday, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, made it clear in a speech that the group would not back down in its fight against Israel or in Syria. The victims in Damascus were not identified as fighters, though at least one appeared in memorial pages on social media in military-looking gear. Syria’s state news agency said that at least one child, a 3-year-old boy, was in critical condition. Extremist Sunni groups among the insurgents, in addition to being sworn enemies of Hezbollah, have targeted Shiites simply for their sect. Regardless, the attack appeared to be unusually provocative, exploding just outside the ancient fortifications of the Old City, near once-bustling tourist destinations like the Umayyad Mosque that Damascus residents still consider relatively safe and hitting Shiites as they traveled from one revered shrine to another. The bus’s next destination was to have been the Sayeda Zeinab shrine outside Damascus, particularly revered by Shiites. Protecting that shrine was one of Hezbollah’s early justifications for its intervention in Syria, and the group has used it as a rallying point to recruit fighters. The bus was part of a weekly tour named for Hussein, the early Islamic warrior whose death in battle is the central narrative of mourning in Shiite Islam, said the organizer, Fadi Kheireddine. He said all 58 passengers were Lebanese. While the shrine’s neighborhood was once a crossroads for many sects and nationalities, a visit last spring revealed that the area was half deserted, presided over by Hezbollah fighters and Syrian militia members, the surrounding streets inhabited by Shiites displaced from northern Syria. But in recent months, regular pilgrim tours have resumed from southern Beirut. |