Syrian forces kill four militants in Damascus

[Menydh]

Syrian forces kill four militants in Damascus

Reuters
June 2, 2006

Four gunmen and one guard were killed when Syrian security forces stopped a "terrorist" attack on Friday that targeted a building behind the premises of the state-run television, the official SANA news agency reported.

Two militants and two members of the security forces were wounded during the attack, SANA said. Authorities arrested four other militants.

Fayez al-Sayegh, head of Syrian radio and television, told Reuters a police patrol had spotted the gunmen and engaged them in the heavily guarded Ummayad Square area in central Damascus.

"This is a major area in Damascus, full of security installations, hotels and other state buildings," he said. "The security force dealt effectively with the group as shown from the number of casualties among its members."

Traffic was normal near the television compound, a Reuters witness said. There was no sign of increased security.

Syrian forces clashed with Islamists militants several times last year, usually in raids to arrest them.

Authorities said in December they had found a bomb factory in the northern city of Aleppo belonging to a militant group that, they said, was monitoring government officials and state facilities.

Political analyst Thabet Salem said the gunmen involved in Friday's shootout were "likely to be members of an Islamist militant organization similar to the ones authorities have been facing lately."

Syria says the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq gave rise to militants in the region.

The United States has been pressuring Damascus to seal its eastern border to stop militants from crossing into Iraq to fight U.S. forces there. Syria says it is doing its best but calls on Washington and Baghdad to do more too.

In the early 1980s, Syria crushed a fundamentalist revolt led by the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to the killing and imprisonment of thousands.


[source]

[Menydh]

Little wonder. Both Syria's and Iraq's Baath Party have for a long time been a deterrant to Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East:

In the early 1980s, Syria crushed a fundamentalist revolt led by the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to the killing and imprisonment of thousands.

With the war for profit and for Israel, both the US and the UK have worked once again in the best interests of Islam: Islamic fundamentalism, until then under the strict control of the Baath Parties of Syria and Iraq in the region, is today in the rise:

Syria says the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq gave rise to militants in the region.

In the meantime, where the fight against Islam is a just cause for it is a foreign, strange and hostile force, in Europe, they have promoted and supported the growth of Islamic strongholds in Albania and Kosovo, or supported the entry of a majority Islamic country, Turkey, in the European Union.

Whenever I have argued that the fight against Islamic invasion in Europe is a just and fair struggle and that it should not be polluted by linking it to the dirty interests of the Anglo-American world, both American WNs and British BNP supporters alike have accused me --lacking of any other argument against-- of pro-Islamic..