Ya Libnan

Blast damages Shiite Muslim shrine outside Damascus, Syria

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 A bomb-laden car driven by a suicide attacker exploded Thursday near a major Shiite Muslim shrine outside the Syrian capital of Damascus, injuring 14 people and damaging part of the shrine, according to Syrian state media and news agency reports.

It was the latest in a series of car bombs that have killed scores of Syrians and elevated tensions in the country’s two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, where the bombings have been the most dramatic manifestation of the more than yearlong insurrection.  Authorities have blamed Al Qaeda-linked Islamic militants from Syria and other nations, including neighboring Iraq and Jordan, for previous suicide bombings.

It was unclear if the intended target of Thursday’s strike was a nearby police station or the golden-domed Sayyida Zainab shrine, the Associated Press reported. The shrine is one of Shiite Islam’s holiest and most magnificent sites and a favored  destination of Shiite pilgrims, especially Iranians. It is said to be the burial place of a revered granddaughter of the prophet Muhammad.

The blast on Thursday shattered shrine windows, knocked down chandeliers and ceiling fans, and cracked mosaic walls inside the religious site, AP reported.

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Syrian man inspects a burned bus that was damaged by a car bomb that exploded at a carpark near the Shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, in a suburb of Damascus, Syria, Thursday, June 14, 2012. A car bomb exploded in a Damascus suburb that is home to a popular Shiite Muslim shrine, wounding at least two people, Syria's state-run news agency SANA reported, while activists said regime troops continued shelling rebellious areas in central Homs province. (AP Photo/SANA)

Official Syrian state media said 14 people were injured in Thursday’s explosion, which occurred inside a parking lot. State media displayed photos from the scene showing destroyed vehicles, a shattered cement building and a crater where the bomb car apparently detonated.

Syria’s 15-month civil conflict has taken on an increasingly sectarian character, with members of the nation’s majority Sunni Muslim community leading the fight to oust President Bashar Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Among Assad’s staunchest international supporters are Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shiite militant group.

 

LA Times

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13 responses to “Blast damages Shiite Muslim shrine outside Damascus, Syria”

  1. dateam Avatar
    dateam

    is this going to be blamed on the government as well? next churches will be burnt down and the government will be blamed for that too? it is spiralling out of control….so called rebels are loose cannons being used to stir up sectarian strife.

    1. 73Corty77 Avatar
      73Corty77

      Didn’t you know dateam, the Syrian government including its allies are to blame for everything that is happening in Syria
      They apparently kill women, children and the elderly for no reason at all.
      As for the poor Free Syrian asshole. All they want is to over turn the government. Not hurt anybody.

      I wonder why it wasn’t a Sunni Muslim shrine that was targeted. 

    2. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Krishnamurti

      The human animal and mutual distrust brought on especially by war. Not just sectarianism, but every prejudice we all have comes to the fore. If you don’t stop to analyse yourself, you’ll never understand others; and yet, the question ‘Who are you?’ comes before ‘Who am I?’.
      If the neighbour has more, steal from him. If anyone laughed at you, even years ago, beat him. Laugh back if someone kills him. A gun is a gun, but carry a bigger one to show you are ‘right’. Don’t walk away from stupidity any more, but be just as stupid and try to crush it with force instead of education. Close your mind to any other method.

      “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.” – Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

      “He that is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others: So they will try to reduce all others to their own level.” – Charles James Fox

      1. dateam Avatar
        dateam

        napolean also said totalatarionism has silence so they do what theywant…democracies dont so they lie????

      2. dateam Avatar
        dateam

        napolean also said totalatarionism has silence so they do what theywant…democracies dont so they lie????

      3. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Dateam … It’s the ‘nature of man’ one must concentrate on, and here’s one related to Napolean from Thomas Jefferson that obviously Americans quickly ignored too, but poor Corty will enjoy reading. 😉
        “We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”

        Perhaps this one explains better, the problem of all the ‘groupings’ – Democratic or not.
        “… privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  2. dateam Avatar
    dateam

    is this going to be blamed on the government as well? next churches will be burnt down and the government will be blamed for that too? it is spiralling out of control….so called rebels are loose cannons being used to stir up sectarian strife.

    1. 73Corty77 Avatar
      73Corty77

      Didn’t you know dateam, the Syrian government including its allies are to blame for everything that is happening in Syria
      They apparently kill women, children and the elderly for no reason at all.
      As for the poor Free Syrian asshole. All they want is to over turn the government. Not hurt anybody.

      I wonder why it wasn’t a Sunni Muslim shrine that was targeted. 

    2. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Krishnamurti

      The human animal and mutual distrust brought on especially by war. Not just sectarianism, but every prejudice we all have comes to the fore. If you don’t stop to analyse yourself, you’ll never understand others; and yet, the question ‘Who are you?’ comes before ‘Who am I?’.
      If the neighbour has more, steal from him. If anyone laughed at you, even years ago, beat him. Laugh back if someone kills him. A gun is a gun, but carry a bigger one to show you are ‘right’. Don’t walk away from stupidity any more, but be just as stupid and try to crush it with force instead of education. Close your mind to any other method.

      “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.” – Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

      “He that is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others: So they will try to reduce all others to their own level.” – Charles James Fox

      1. dateam Avatar
        dateam

        napolean also said totalatarionism has silence so they do what theywant…democracies dont so they lie????

      2. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Dateam … It’s the ‘nature of man’ one must concentrate on, and here’s one related to Napolean from Thomas Jefferson that obviously Americans quickly ignored too, but poor Corty will enjoy reading. 😉
        “We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”

        Perhaps this one explains better, the problem of all the ‘groupings’ – Democratic or not.
        “… privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  3. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Someone in the past actually revered a ‘grandaughter’?

  4. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Someone in the past actually revered a ‘grandaughter’?

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