LOCAL PRESS REACTION TO ATTACK ON U.S. EMBASSY

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 004448 SIPDIS SIPDIS PARIS FOR WALLER, LONDON FOR TSOU, DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/15/2006 TAGS: ASEC PGOV SY SUBJECT: LOCAL PRESS REACTION TO ATTACK ON U.S. EMBASSY REF: A. DAMASCUS 1160 ¶B. DAMASCUS 2598 Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY: A/DCM William V. Roebuck for reasons 1.4 B/D ¶1. (U) No one has yet claimed responsibility for yesterday's attack, but the SARG is publicly blaming militant Islamists. Asharq Al-Awsat reported that a "Syrian security member was killed by the bullets of an American Marine element that was on the roof of the Embassy." However, the RSO confirms that U.S. Marines fired no shots yesterday. The government-owned news agency, SANA, reported that the fourth terrorist died of severe wounds before authorities were able interrogate him. ¶2. (U) Less specific than Syrian Ambassador to the U.S. Imad Moustapha's comments on CNN blaming Jund al-Sham, SANA reported that Syrian forces thwarted an operation by an unspecified Sunni Islamic jihadist group, referred to generically as a "Takfiri" group. Initial official statements were even more vague, with the government-controlled paper Al-Thawra reporting that the Interior Minister General Bassam Abdel Majeed simply stated that it was a "terrorist operation targeting the U.S. embassy." ¶3. (U) Echoing Ambassador Moustapha,s public accusation that U.S. policy had provoked the attack, other Syrian officials including MP and Prominent Sunni Sheikh Muhammad Habash blamed U.S. policy. He said, "I am certainly not a news reporter, but after this continuous series of U.S. injustices in the region, I can understand why people are angry at the U.S. policies and why militants who might or might not be affiliated with extremist organizations carry out such acts." JUND AL-SHAM ¶4. (C) Despite the Syrian press not yet having named Jund al-Sham as responsible for the September 12 attack on the U.S. Embassy, regional and international press has focused on the group. The group, Jund al-Sham, Arabic for Soldiers of the Levant, is a Sunni Muslim group. The group is reportedly affiliated with a branch of al-Qaida and has been linked to various attacks mostly in northern Syria (in and around Aleppo) and more recently in Damascus. In the last year, the state-controlled press has linked the group to a series of attacks and gun battles with security forces. SARG officials portray the group as the most active militant group in the country. ¶5. (C) COMMENT: The SARG argues that the violent activities of Jund al-Sham demonstrate that Syria too is targeted by terrorism because of the SARG's secular nationalist ideology. Regime proxies insist that militant Islamists also target the Alawite regime because it is viewed as dominated by a "heretical" Muslim sect. Many Syrians, including members of Syria's civil society groups and opposition members, argue that the SARG is fabricating the clashes with Jund al-Sham to persuade the West it is taking steps to prevent foreign fighters from infiltrating Iraq and that it is confronting a rising Islamist force (ref A). These voices further insist that the SARG's "battle" against Jund al-Sham is designed to subtly warn the West that the Asad regime is the last bulwark in Syria preventing a fundamentalist takeover. Interestingly, Jund al-Sham,s last few attacks have come in close proximity to the release of a report by the international investigators into the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri (ref B) END COMMENT. CORBIN