DAMASCUS, 16 May 2004 — Syria blamed yesterday an “isolated” group of Syrian extremists for an attack and gunbattle in Damascus late in April in which four people were killed. Syria’s state-run news agency quoted an Interior Ministry official as identifying the assailants as Ayman Shlash and Mohammed Al-Nahhar, who died in the April 27 clash with security forces in a diplomatic quarter of Damascus, and Ahmed Shlash and Ezzo Al-Hussein, who were arrested.
The unidentified official did not say whether the men were related or what their motive was. But a Syrian close to the government told The Associated Press last week that among the men were two brothers, the Shlashes, and a cousin, and that they were among Arab volunteers who went to Iraq in the early stages of the US-led war on Saddam Hussein’s regime.
