Terrorism hotbed: Syria strangled by extremists ‘supported from abroad’
Syrian forces have foiled a major terror plot just a day after twin blasts killed 56 and injured hundreds more in Damascus. The authorities are calling on the UN, saying the country has become a hotbed of terrorism supported from abroad.
National security forces have killed a bomber who had 1,200 kilos of explosives in his car, in the northern city of Aleppo. This comes as Syria says it has a list of 26 terrorists – some affiliated with al-Qaeda – who were detained in recent clashes, which it will send to the UN Security Council.Syria's envoy Bashar Jaafari also promised to deliver a list of 12 foreign terrorists who were killed in Syria.“We have a list that contains 12 names of foreign terrorists killed in Syria, including one French citizen, one British citizen, one Belgian citizen,” Jaafari told the Council.On Friday Damascus sent a number of official letters to the UN claiming that the attacks are being sponsored from abroad.“Continuous crimes show that Syria has run into terror groups, which get military and financial support from those who claimed support of these terror attacks and encourage them,” one letter read.Damascus has also said that Thursday’s bombings are further evidence of the activity of terrorist groups supported from Turkey and Libya. Meanwhile, the opposition suspects that the Assad government is behind the Friday blast, and accuses it of cooperating with al-Qaeda, saying the relationship between the two is “very strong.'' “The Syrian regime wanted, through these terrorist explosions, to support its silly story of the presence of armed and terrorist gangs,” Burhan Ghalioun, chief of the opposition Syrian National Council, said in a statement delivered in a video broadcast.There are about 170 UN observers in Syria now, sent there to monitor the situation. Local people have shown a great desire to report to the observers the conditions on the ground, RT`s Sarah Firth reports from Syria.Last month the UN Security Council agreed to send 300 observers to Syria to oversee the conflict and control the implementation of Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan.
