Car bomb kills 17 in Syrian battleground of Aleppo as Jordanian militant warns of more attacks

By Associated Press, Published: September 9

AMMAN, Jordan — A car bomb ripped through Syria’s largest city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 40 in one of the main battlegrounds of the country’s civil war, state-run media said.

Al-Qaida-style bombings have become increasingly common in Syria, and Western officials say there is little doubt that Islamist extremists, some associated with the terror network, have made inroads in the country as instability has spread. But the main fighting force looking to oust President Bashar Assad is the Free Syrian Army, a group made up largely of defected Syrian soldiers.

Sunday’s blast came hours after a Jordanian militant leader linked to al-Qaida warned that his extremist group will launch “deadly attacks” to help the rebels in Syria topple Assad.

In a speech delivered to a crowd of nearly 200 followers protesting outside the prime minister’s office in Amman, Mohammad al-Shalabi, better known as Abu Sayyaf, told Assad that “our fighters are coming to get you.”

The warning fueled concern that Syria’s civil war is providing a new forum for foreign jihadists, who fought alongside Iraqi Sunni insurgents after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and are sending fighters to help the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“From this podium, we declare jihad (holy war) against the wicked Assad, who is shedding the blood of our Sunni Muslim brothers in Syria,” Abu Sayyaf yelled through a loudspeaker.

Abu Sayyaf is the head of Jordan’s Salafi Jihadi group, which was blamed for the 2002 assassination of U.S. aid worker Laurence Foley outside his Amman home. He himself was convicted in 2004 of plotting attacks on Jordanian air bases hosting American trainers but served his term and was released last year.

State-run TV aired footage of fire trucks trying to extinguish the blaze and rescue workers digging through mounds of rubble left by the car bomb. Aleppo’s governor, Mohammed Wahid Akkad, was quoted by Syria’s official news agency, SANA, as saying 17 dead were civilians.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. SANA blamed terrorists, the term the regime uses for rebels. Opposition activists could not immediately be reached for comment.

Commenting on the story, Ribal Al-Assad, Director of the ODFS, said:

“I condemn the terrorism being perpetrated by the Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition. I also condemn the Jihadist infiltration of Syria, which has the potential to spark off an all out civil war. Whether it is al-Qaida, or non al-Qaida affiliated Salafi Wahabi groups – the fact is that they are all Islamist Jihadist groups. The words of people like Abu Sayyaf should serve as warning to the international community that some of the Syrian ‘opposition’ are working for a theocracy and not a democracy. That is not what the majority of the Syrian people want.

“There is no military solution to this conflict. A diplomatic solution based on the conditions set out in the Kofi Annan Plan is the only way forward. If an all out civil war leading in Syria and the region is to be avoided then all parties- the regime, the opposition and their outside backers must de-escalate the violence and work towards a ceasefire.This is the only way to start a political process leading to a peaceful inclusive democratic transition to a national unity government and democracy and freedom. The alternative a dangerous and lasting destabilisation of Syria and the Middle East

“I call on all the Syrian opposition to unite onto one platform and work together for a peaceful solution”.