Syria suicide bombing kills top pro-Assad Sunni Muslim preacher
The Associated PressSheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, an 84-year-old cleric known to all Syrians as a religious scholar, speaks at a press conference. Al-Buti, a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad was killed in a suicide bombing in the Eman Mosque, at the Mazraa district, in Damascus, Syria on Thursday.
A suicide bomb ripped through a
mosque in the heart of the Syrian capital Thursday, killing a top Sunni
Muslim preacher and outspoken supporter of President Bashar Assad in one
of the most stunning assassinations of Syria’s 2-year-old civil war. At
least 41 others were killed and more than 84 wounded.
The slaying of Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti removes one of
the few remaining pillars of support for Assad among the majority Sunni
sect that has risen up against him.
It also marks a new low in the Syrian civil war: While suicide
bombings blamed on Islamic extremists fighting with the rebels have
become common, Thursday’s attack was the first time a suicide bomber
detonated his explosives inside a mosque.
A prolific writer whose sermons were regularly broadcast on TV, the
84-year-old al-Buti was killed while giving a religious lesson to
students at the Eman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus.
The Associated PressThe
Eman Mosque is seen destroyed after a suicide bomber
blew himself up,
killing Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, an 84-year-old
cleric known to all Syrians as a religious scholar, at the Mazraa district, in Damascus,
Syria on Thursday.
cleric known to all Syrians as a religious scholar, at the Mazraa district, in Damascus,
Syria on Thursday.
The most senior religious figure to be killed in Syria’s civil war,
his assassination was a major blow to Syria’s embattled leader, who is
fighting mainly Sunni rebels seeking his ouster. Al-Buti has been a
vocal supporter of the regime since the early days of Assad’s father and
predecessor, the late President Hafez Assad, providing Sunni cover and
legitimacy to their rule. Sunnis are the majority sect in Syria while
Assad is from the minority Alawite sect – an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
“The blood of Sheik al-Buti will be a fire that ignites all the
world,” said Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, the country’s top
state-appointed Sunni Muslim cleric and an Assad loyalist.
Syrian TV showed footage of wounded people and bodies with severed
limbs on the mosque’s blood-stained floor, and later, corpses covered in
white body bags lined up in rows. Sirens wailed through the capital as
ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion, which was sealed off by
the military.
Among those killed was al-Buti’s grandson, the TV said.
The bombing was among the most serious security breaches in the
capital. An attack in July that targeted a high-level government crisis
meeting killed four top regime officials, including Assad’s
brother-in-law and the defense minister.
Source : AP
Che'Yahya Che'Soh
Pengetua SMKSB@STAR
Kuala Lumpur.
Jumaat 22 Mac 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment