4 dead in Syrian violence

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Gunmen attacked a former United Nations office in a diplomatic quarter of Damascus, setting off a battle with police that pelted nearby buildings with bullets and grenades.\nThe fighting killed two attackers, a policeman and a civilian, the government said.\nSyria has not seen such violence since the 1980s, when the government put down an insurgency by Islamic militants.\nThe vacant building was formerly occupied by the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, which oversees an agreement between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. It was extensively damaged by fire during the gunbattle.\n"Unidentified terrorists attacked a U.N. office building in Damascus, and this office is surrounded by many embassies as well," Syria's ambassador to Washington, D.C., Imad Moustapha, said in a telephone interview from Washington.\nMoustapha said it was too early to know the motivation of the attackers or whether they were Islamist.\n"There was a random exchange of fire, and probably every building in that area was hit by a grenade or a bullet" before security forces surrounded the area and returned fire, he said.\nSyria's official news agency, SANA, quoting a security source, called the attackers "a terrorist band."\nThe Al-Arabiya television network said there were four attackers. It said three were killed and one wounded. The report could not be immediately confirmed.\nAfter the gunbattle, large crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the damaged building. Youths drove by honking car horns, waving pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad and chanting pro-Syrian and pro-Assad slogans.\nIn New York, Marie Okabe, a U.N. spokesman, said all U.N. staff and facilities were safe and accounted for.\nThe U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, the capital of neighboring Iraq, was bombed twice after the U.S.-led war last year. The first, Aug. 19, killed 22 people, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.\nWitnesses, who said the violence started about 7:20 p.m. and lasted 70 minutes, gave different reports that could not immediately be reconciled.\nOne witness said four gunmen came out of a white van on the main Mazza Boulevard in front of the Canadian Embassy and started shooting indiscriminately. A police car on patrol in the area rushed to the scene and came under fire. The police shot back and police and plainclothes security forces reinforcements arrived, the witness said.