DAMASCUS, Syria — Explosions and gunfire roared in this city's diplomatic quarter Tuesday night as militants damaged a onetime United Nations building and battled security forces in a rare burst of violence in this tightly controlled country.
The gunmen apparently targeted the former offices of the U.N. peacekeeping force monitoring the Golan Heights. Police returned fire, and a rain of grenades and bullets spread over the Mazza neighborhood, home to the Iranian and Canadian embassies as well as the British ambassador's residence.
Early details of the fight were sketchy and contradictory. Some residents and security sources said a car bomb exploded in front of the former U.N. building, which caught fire, sending plumes of dark smoke into the sky. With electricity cut, residents cowered in the dark while the shooting continued for more than an hour.
"A subversive armed group opened fire at random this evening in the Mazza area and was confronted by the relevant security apparatus," the state news agency SANA quoted a Syrian security official as saying. "The situation is totally under control."
Syrian television made a terse announcement that security officers had taken charge of the situation.
The attack comes at a time when violence is on the rise throughout the region. A week ago, Islamists stunned Saudi Arabia by setting off a suicide car bomb outside a police headquarters in Riyadh, the kingdom's capital.
And this week, Jordanian television aired video of militants who confessed to planning chemical bomb attacks in Jordan's capital, Amman. The conspirators hoped to kill as many as 80,000 people, the state-run television station said.
"This is a terrorist act," Syrian political analyst Mohammed Borhan said. "We have seen an escalation of terrorist cells in Iraq's neighboring countries. This is a form of pressure on the coalition to tell them to get out of Iraq."
Security sources said that at least three of the attackers had been killed and that a fourth was wounded and arrested. A Syrian policeman and a female bystander also were killed, SANA reported.
"The Syrian Arab Republic, which has confronted all forms of terrorism and continues to do so, condemns this terrorist act," SANA quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying. "[Syria] reiterates its position in confronting terrorist acts that aim to shake security and stability and spread chaos."
