Syrian security forces kill five militants in clash
Posted on: Saturday, 3 September 2005, 07:40 CDT
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian security forces have killed five militants in a clash in central Syria with an Islamist group plotting "terrorist" attacks, the official SANA news agency said on Saturday.
"The anti-terror squad raided on Friday evening a hideout of a terrorist group belonging to Jund al-Sham in the Hama governorate," it said, quoting an Interior Ministry source.
"A clash took place and resulted in the killing of all five members of the group," while two Syrian security officers were wounded, it said.
Syrian forces also found an arsenal of weapons, bombs and explosives stashed in the group's hideout in an isolated house in Jibrin, a village near Syria's central city of Hama, it said.
"The group was about to execute terrorist actions that seek to destabilize the security and stability of society," SANA quoted the source as saying.
Late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad crushed a revolt by Islamic militants mainly linked to the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization in Hama in the early 1980s.
Syria has also cracked down on suspected Islamic militants in recent months, arresting dozens and extraditing 21 to Tunisia and 12 to Saudi Arabia in July.
Syria said it killed a Tunisian Islamic militant who was among a group trying to cross the border into Lebanon and arrested 34 other last month. Two soldiers were also killed in that clash.
Syria also arrested two militants after a clash in the Qasioun hills on the edge of Damascus last month and SANA said some members of the "terrorist" group had worked as bodyguards for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Syria is under increasing pressure from the United States to seal its desert border with Iraq to stop Islamic militants from crossing to fight U.S. forces there.
A source close to Syrian government thinking said Syria was trying to stop any activity by al Qaeda or any of its affiliates in Syria.
Source: REUTERS
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