15 reported killed in bombing of bus

FIFTEEN civilians were reported killed and 30 injured in a bomb explosion in a residential quarter of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Tuesday. The Syrian authorities promptly imposed a news blackout after the incident, the second major bombing in Damascus in seven months.

News of the bomb, which was planted on a bus, was leaked by travellers from Damascus arriving in Amman and Cairo. Among the wounded was reported to be a family of 11.

Syria last night accused Israel's Mossad intelligence agency of being behind the explosion. "This terrorist, cowardly and criminal action comes within the framework of threats which were launched recently by Israeli officials that aim at killing the (Middle East) peace process, official spokesman said.

In Jerusalem, Mr Shai Bazak, the spokesman for the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuter: "It's a gross lie. Israel strives for nothing but peace and acts solely in peaceful ways."

In Washington, the State Department spokesman Mr Nicholas Burns told reporters that the US could not confirm the Syrian report that Israeli agents planted the bomb. He warned Syria against making "wild and irresponsible" statements without evidence.

Last April and May there were half a dozen small explosions in the northern Syrian port of Latakia and other towns, culminating in a major explosion in Damascus on May 6th.

At the time there was speculation that bomb was intended to kill either the Syrian President Mr Hafez al Assad, who was due to travel along the road where the explosion occurred, or the leader of the Turkish rebel Kurds, Mr Abdullah Ocalan, who lives in the area.

Whoever was the target, several hundred ethnic Turks were rounded up and interrogated over their possible involvement.

The Syrian authorities apparently blamed the bombings on Turkey, which had been pressing Damascus to end its support for the Turkish Kurds fighting ford independence from Ankara.

Damascus also linked Turkey's involvement to its military training and security agreements with Israel. Israel stood accused of encouraging Turkey to destabilise its southern neighbour because Damascus backs the Lebanese Hizbullah resistance operating against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.

The object of such violence would be to shake Damascus, both at home, where the government has not had to deal with bombings since it suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, and in its protectorate, where Syrian soldiers and civilians had been safe and sound.

Furthermore, Israel has been blamed by the Lebanese authorities as the instigator of a Christmas eve attack by Lebanese Maronite Christian militants on Syrian workers riding in a minibus at Tabarja, north of Beirut.

Sixty Maronite militants, many from the National Liberal Party which has had close connections with Israel, were arrested and charges were preferred against several leading party members.