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Al Qaeda in Syria?

May 18, 2012

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said he believes al Qaeda was behind the deadly bomb blasts that rocked Syria last week, killing 55 and wounding hundreds.

https://p.dw.com/p/14xF5
A Syrian security official stands near a crater at the site of the explosion in Damascus
Image: Reuters

Last week's deadly car bombs that struck Damascus and killed 55 people bore the marks of al Qaeda, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

"Very alarmingly and surprisingly, a few days ago, there was a huge serious massive terrorist attack. I believe that there must be al Qaeda behind it. This has created again very serious problems," said Ban from UN headquarters Thursday evening.

The two car bombs injured an additional 372 people and left a massive crater on a busy road in the Syrian capital. It was the deadliest attack in Damascus since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

Ban also commented on the peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan, which has now been in effect for five weeks and shown little signs of being effective. At the moment, 257 unarmed UN monitors are in Syria to observe the ceasefire, which Ban said was the only part of the six-part peace plan that had been implemented.

"The deployment of monitors has some dampening effect - the number of [violent instances] has reduced but not enough, not all the [violence has] stopped," Ban said. "We are trying our best efforts to protect the civilian population."

The monitors themselves were the targets of two attacks in recent weeks.

According to the latest UN estimate, as many as 10,000 may have lost their lives since the conflict in Syria began, Ban said.

mz/tm (AP, AFP, Reuters)