Reading the Signs of the Syrian Bombing

Often when a terrorist or violent act occurs in Syria, I feel like an astrologist watching a volcanic eruption on a distant planet for omens and portents. Today's car bombing in Damascus that left 17 people dead is a reminder that under the surface of that seemingly airless, unchanging place, there's molten fire. But beyond that, it's hard to know what signifies.

Ever since the secular Baathist government waged a brutally effective civil war against Islamic terrorists in the early 1980's, Syria has been one of the safest countries in the region. But within the last decade, Syria's chokehold on religious groups has begun to relax. This is part of an awkward attempt to co-opt the rise of Islamic feeling within the region, but also a result of the opening of Syria's economy to Saudi and Gulfie businessmen, some of whom brought their Islamic charities and mosque building programs with them. Most of the activity is harmless. But some may have also opened Syria up to infiltration by extremists.

Since 2006, there have been a rash of small scale attacks that the Syrian government has blamed on Islamic terrorists, including attacks against Syrian state television in central Damascus, against a checkpoint on the Lebanese border, a prison uprising, and an unsuccessful raid by gunman on the US Embassy -- which is nearly next door to the home of President Bashar al Assad. But today's attack represents a major escalation. This was the first large car bomb -- with perhaps 200 kilos of explosives -- aimed at mass casualties.

The rise in jihaddist activity in Syria could also be a case of blowback. After the Bush administration rebuffed Syrian overtures to provide intelligence for the fight against al Qaeda after 9/11, and after the US began hinting that it might do to the Assad regime what it did to Saddam Hussein, the Syrian government allowed their country to become a transit point for Islamist militants heading to Iraq to fight the Americans, according the US Army. Are jihaddis now biting the proverbial hand that fed them?

And yet, the attack could be something completely different. Syria is in the middle of a delicate diplomatic moment after having initiated indirect peace talks with Israel, and the region is rife with speculation about two unsolved major assassinations in Syria so far this year: of Hizballah's military operations chief, and of the a top military aid to President Assad. Were these house-cleaning gestures by the Syrian regime to show that it would be willing to cut its ties with Hizballah and sign a peace deal with Israel, or are hardliners within the regime acting out against detente? Today's attack is bound to be read in the context of such conspiracy theories. But it's worth taking all of this Syrian Kremlinology with a healthy dose of agnosticism. As the saying goes: no one who knows talks, and no one who talk's knows.

--Andrew Lee Butters in Beirut with reporting by Obaida Hamad in Damascus