Blasts, gunfight, jar Damascus

Residents survey a building that used to house the UN office in Damascus, Tuesday, after explosions and gunfire rocked the Syrian capital. PHOTO: REUTERS

The Syrian capital went on high security alert Wednesday after a series of explosions and a shootout in the diplomatic quarter where two "terrorists," a policeman and a female passerby were killed.

The state news agency, SANA, said authorities later uncovered a cache of arms and explosives that belonged to the unknown group which carried out the attacks late Tuesday.

The cache was found in Khan al-Shih, a village 25km south of Damascus, it said.

The US State Department said it was keeping the US embassy closed yesterday as a precaution and advised non-essential personnel to remain at home after the violence.

Syrian police, meanwhile, blocked off access routes to the embassy.

Though the incident occurred far from the US embassy compound, the Canadian and Iranian embassies are located nearby and Ottawa said its mission had sustained minor damage in the gunbattle between the attackers and police.

Yesterday, security measures were stepped up around public buildings and the diplomatic quarter of Mazzeh, in western Damascus, where the attacks took place.

Army units and police were deployed overnight along the 45m stretch between the Lebanese border and Damascus following the attack, travellers said.

Syria's ruling Baath party newspaper said yesterday the attack was another sign of the "inferno" gripping the entire region.

"It seems it is difficult to maintain 100 percent security in a tense region which has turned into an inferno ... but stability must remain the priority of priorities for all Syrians," it said.

"Over the course of the past year, dangerous security and political developments have taken place, with the occupation of Iraq and the intensification of Israeli aggression" in the Palestinian territories, it said.

The Syrian interior ministry gave an account of the violence, identifying the assailants only as a "terrorist group."

"A group of four persons placed a device under a parked car early on Tuesday evening. The device exploded sparking damage to an uninhabited building in Mazzeh," an interior ministry official said.

"A clash ensued between the security forces and the terrorist group, which fled aboard a second car throwing grenades at the security forces," he said, quoted by SANA.

Two of the assailants were killed and the two others seriously wounded.

"Syria, which has been facing up to terrorism for a quarter of a century, denounces this terrorist incident which attacks stability and threatens the safety of citizen and country," he added.

"It will take all possible measures to face this," he said.

Witnesses said that seven hooded gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at former UN offices. The building was set on fire, its windows shattered and the facade charred.