The day after September 11, 2006, Islamic terrorists attempted to attack the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria.  Armed with grenades, automatic weapons and a van filled with explosives, four terrorists were stopped by Syrian security forces before they were able to penetrate the U.S. compound.

Three of the terrorists were killed in the attack.  The fourth, wounded and arrested, was later said to have died from his wounds before he could be interrogated.  No Americans were injured in the attack, but a Syrian guard outside the compound was killed and approximately 11 civilians were injured, including a Chinese diplomat.

Shouting the now all-too-familiar "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) as they attempted to storm the compound, the terrorists were tentatively identified by Syrian officials as Syrian citizens likely affiliated with Jund al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot implicated in at least six mostly obscure violent incidents in the Middle East, none of those specifically directed at the U.S.

Information about Jund al-Sham is sketchy at best, but according to the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, that is the "title claimed by several Sunni Islamic extremist entities, all or none of which may be tied together...The first incarnation of Jund al-Sham occurred in Afghanistan in 1999 when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi led exiled militants and recruits from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine in planning and training...Following the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, Jund al-Sham was widely scattered and many of its members are believed to have returned to their homelands where other groups operating under the same title surfaced in 2004 and 2005."

The U.S. did not immediately accept the Jund al-Sham identification provided by the Syrians; Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said it is too early for such a conclusion.  Skepticism may remain for some time, given lack of access to evidence, and a pattern of Syrian references to the group, which some believe are used as a pretext to enhance Syrian claims regarding its dubious anti-terrorism efforts.

As a secular dictatorship, even Syria is ultimately threatened by the fanaticism of Islamo-fascism.  Be that as it may, Syria is undeniably a state sponsor of terrorist organizations, most prominently Hezbollah.  The U.S. withdrew its Ambassador to Syria following the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last year.  Syria is almost universally believed to have been involved in that plot.

Syrian security forces, which guard the outside of all embassies in Damascus, as is the custom for host countries, did stop the attack.  The U.S. immediately expressed ample gratitude.  Syria immediately blamed U.S. policies in the Middle East for the attack.

The attack did not come on September 11.  No Americans were killed.  The attack was unsophisticated, far from spectacular, just like others that crudely accomplish their deadly missions.  It is notoriously difficult to obtain adequate or accurate information out of Damascus.  Had the attack come a day earlier, had it succeeded, clearly it would have been treated differently from the perfunctory shrugs it has received.

Liberals scarcely noticed the incident, so obsessed were they in attacking President Bush's September 11 primetime television speech warning of future terrorism.  Many had already finished lip-synching "God Bless America" off key. 

Others were busily challenging the nomenclature of terrorism – whether those who want to wipe out Western Civilization should be referred to as Islamo-fascists.  That is an argument of such stupefying irrelevance, by people you wouldn't let read to your children, it makes even infantile articulations for appeasement seem more responsible. 

Neither "human rights" groups nor the U.S. Senate demanded an investigation into the questionable circumstances of a terrorist dying before he could be interrogated, begging the question of what would have happened if U.S. Marines rather than Syrians had been involved.

The U.N. Security Council did not go into emergency session, perhaps so as not to detract from scheduled addresses by George Clooney and Iranian President Nutbucket. 

The conspiracy theorists are yet to weigh in, but give them time.  Their brains work differently from ours, and most probably don't yet know that two of the injured "bystanders" were alleged to be Iraqi.

Just another tiny, routine act of terrorism against us, folks.  How about that gasoline price drop?  Wow.  Now that's something.