Pro-Assad preacher killed in Syrian suicide bombing
BEIRUT— A suicide bomb tore through a mosque in the Syrian capital Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad along with at least 41other people.
The assassination of Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti removes one of the few remaining pillars of support for the Alawite leader among the majority sect that has risen up against him.
The powerful explosion struck as alButi, an 84-year-old cleric and religious scholar who appeared often on TV, was giving a religious lesson in the Eman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus, according to state TV.
Thursday’s explosion marked the first time a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a mosque.
Syrian TV said 84 people were wounded in the explosion and showed footage of wounded people and bodies with severed limbs on the bloodstained floor and, later, bodies covered in white body bags lined up in rows.
Among those killed were al-Buti’s grandson, the TV report said.
Al-Buti’s death was a blow to Syria’s embattled leader, who is fighting mainly Sunni rebels seeking his ouster. Al-Buti has been a vocal supporter of his regime. Sunnis are the majority sect in Syria while Assad is from the minority Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam.