Five Deadly Attacks Hit Damascus in 24 Hours

Local Editor
24 people, seven of them children, were killed in the town of Qatana southwest of Damascus after a man driving a car blew himself up, Syrian News Agency SANA reported.

The suicide attack, which hit a residential area near Mikhail Semaan School in Qatana, also caused material damage to the region.

On Wednesday three terrorist attacks targeted the main entrance of the Syrian Interior Ministry in Kafr Sousa region in Damascus, killing five people and wounding 23 others.

Al-Nusra terrorist group claimed Thursday responsibility for the Interior Ministry attacks that fell only few hours after the so-called “Friends of Syria” officially recognized the “Syrian National Coalition” opposition group as the representative of the Syrian people and corroborating this step with financial support.

Another bomb that was planted in a Taxicab in Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus killed three people including a woman and her child, and wounded eight others. Journalist Anmar Yassin Mohammad, who works at the Syrian News Center, was also killed in the attack.

Robert Ford: "al Nusra have killed hundreds of Syrian civilians"

'You Americans can call Jabhat al Nusra terrorists if you like,

but to us they are more useful than you are.'

"... "The al-Nusrah Front was formed by AQI and has pledged allegiance to its leader, Abu Du'a. Over the last year, AQI leaders have dispatched personnel, money, and materiel from Iraq to Syria to attack Syrian regime forces. Al-Nusrah Front has claimed responsibility for nearly 600 attacks -- in most major city centers. These acts, which have killed and wounded hundreds of Syrian civilians, do not carefully target the regime. Nusrah doesn't care if it kills civilians," Ford wrote.....

The recognition is a political designation and is meant to both bolster the new council's legitimacy versus groups like al-Nusra and facilitate international aid to the Syrian opposition groups the United States does not consider terrorists. But experts note that the new council has a long way to go before it can show enough credibility to stand as the government in waiting to follow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.... 

Ford said that Syrians fighting Assad should reject help from al-Nusra, which isn't likely considering that it is supplying a host of weapons and fighters to the rebels...

"Al-Nusrah Front has declared publicly its hope to impose an Islamic state. It rejects the very principles of freedom for which Syrians now are struggling. Al-Qa'ida's devastating violence in Iraq should give pause to any opposition member weighing the costs of affiliating with al-Nusrah Front. ..."

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
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