Minaret of famed mosque in Syria destroyed

BEIRUT (AP) — The 11th-century minaret of a famed mosque that towered over the narrow stone alleyways of Aleppo's old quarter collapsed Wednesday as rebels and government troops fought pitched battles in the streets around it, depriving the ancient Syrian city of one of its most important landmarks.

President Bashar Assad's government and the rebels trying to overthrow him traded blame over the destruction to the Umayyad Mosque, a UNESCO world heritage site and centerpiece of Aleppo's walled Old City.

"This is like blowing up the Taj Mahal or destroying the Acropolis in Athens. This mosque is a living sanctuary," said Helga Seeden, a professor of archaeology at the American University of Beirut. "This is a disaster. In terms of heritage, this is the worst I've seen in Syria. I'm horrified."

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a commercial hub, emerged as a key battleground in the nation's civil war after rebels launched an offensive there last summer. Since then, the fighting has carved the city into rebel- and regime-held zones, killed thousands of people, forced thousands more to flee their homes and laid waste to entire neighborhoods.

The Umayyad Mosque complex, which dates mostly from the 12th century, suffered extensive damage in October as both sides fought to control the walled compound in the heart of the old city. The fighting left the mosque burned, scarred by bullets and trashed. Two weeks earlier, the nearby medieval covered market, or souk, was gutted by a fire sparked by fighting.

With thousands of years of written history, Syria is home to archaeological treasures that date back to biblical times, including the desert oasis of Palmyra, a cultural center of the ancient world. The nation's capital, Damascus, is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

At least five of Syria's six World Heritage sites have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNESCO, the U.N.'s cultural agency. Looters have broken into one of the world's best-preserved Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, and ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra were damaged. Both rebel and regime forces have set up bases in some of Syria's significant historic sites, including citadels and Turkish bath houses, while thieves have stolen artifacts from museums.

The destruction of the minaret — which dated to 1090 and was the oldest surviving part of the Umayyad Mosque — brought outrage and grief.

"What is happening is a big shame," said Imad a-Khal, a 59-year-old Christian businessman in Aleppo. "Thousands of tourists used to visit this site. Every day is a black day for Syrians."

The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, accused the government of intentionally committing "a crime against civilization and humanity" by destroying the minaret.

"The regime has done all it can to tear apart the Syrian social fabric," the Coalition said in a statement. "By its killings and destruction of heritage, it is planting bitterness in the hearts of the people that will be difficult to erase for a long time to come."

There were conflicting accounts about what leveled the minaret, leaving the once-soaring stone tower a pile of rubble and twisted metal scattered in the mosque's tiled courtyard.

Syria's state news agency said rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group blew it up, while Aleppo-based activist Mohammed al-Khatib said a Syrian army tank fired a shell that "totally destroyed" the minaret.

The mosque fell into rebel hands earlier this year after heavy fighting but the area around the compound remains contested, with Syrian troops just some 200 yards (meters) away.

An amateur video posted online by the anti-government Aleppo Media Center showed the mosque's vaulted archways charred from earlier fighting and a pile of rubble where the minaret used to be.

Standing inside the mosque courtyard, a man who appeared to be a rebel fighter, said regime forces recently fired seven shells at the minaret but failed to knock it down. On Wednesday, the tank rounds struck their target, he said.

"We were standing here today and suddenly shells started hitting the minaret," the man said. The army "then tried to storm the mosque but we pushed them back."

The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting.

The destruction in Aleppo follows the collapse a week earlier of the minaret of the historic Omari Mosque in the southern city of Daraa. The Daraa mosque was built during the Islamic conquest of Syria in the days of Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab in the seventh century.

In that instance as well, the opposition and regime blamed each other. The state news agency accused Jabhat al-Nusra of positioning cameras around the area to record the event.

Whether the destruction is targeted or not, the damage highlights the difficulties of protecting a nation's cultural heritage in wartime.

"Culture can only really be protected in peace time. When you have open warfare, it is impossible," said Seeden, the archaeology professor in Beirut. "When buildings are under fire, you cannot protect the buildings. You can't protect what's in it, if they are mosaics, wall paintings, architectural details that are part of the building — there's no way you can protect them."

After the Umayyad Mosque was first damaged last year, Assad issued a presidential decree to form a committee to repair it by the end of 2013, although it's not clear what such a body could do amid a raging civil war. The mosque's last renovations began about 20 years ago and were completed in 2006.

The damage in Aleppo is just part of the wider devastation caused by the country's conflict, which began more than two years ago with largely peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war as the opposition took up arms in the face of a withering government crackdown. The fighting has exacted a huge toll, killing more than 70,000 people, leaving cities, towns and villages in ruins and forcing more than a million people to flee their homes and seek refuge abroad.

Also Wednesday, Syrian church officials said the whereabouts of two bishops kidnapped in northern Syria remain unknown, a day after telling reporters the priests had been released.

Gunmen pulled Bishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church and Bishop John Ibrahim of the Assyrian Orthodox Church from their car and killed their driver on Monday while they were traveling outside Aleppo. It was not clear who abducted the priests.

But Bishop Tony Yazigi of the Damascus-based Greek Orthodox Church said the gunmen are believed to be Chechen fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra. Yazigi declined to say what made it appear that the Nusra Front was involved.

That account corresponded with one provided by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said foreign fighters had abducted the bishops near a checkpoint outside Aleppo. Director Rami Abdul-Rahman said activists in the area said the gunmen were foreign fighters from the Caucuses.

However, the main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, condemned the kidnapping and blamed Assad's regime.

In Rome, Pope Francis called for the rapid release of the two bishops. In his appeal Tuesday, the pontiff called the abduction "a dramatic confirmation of the tragic situation in which the Syrian population and its Christian community are living."

There has been a spike in kidnappings in northern Syria, much of which is controlled by the rebels, and around Damascus in recent months. Residents blame criminal groups that have ties to both the regime and the rebels for the abductions of wealthy residents traveling to Syria from neighboring Turkey and Lebanon.

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Associated Press writers Barbara Surk and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

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Follow Ryan Lucas on Twitter at www.twitter.com/relucasz

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Syrian president vows revenge after mosque bombing

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed Friday to avenge the death of a senior pro-government cleric who was killed along with dozens of people in a suicide bombing at a Damascus mosque, saying he would "purge our country" of the militants behind the attack in the heart of the capital.

Both Assad and the rebels seeking to topple him blamed each other for Thursday's bombing at the mosque. At least 49 people were killed, including the 84-year-old preacher and his grandson, the government said, in one of the most brazen assassinations of the Syrian civil war.

Although the cleric was despised by the rebels for his unwavering support of the regime, opposition leaders condemned his killing.

In a rare statement on Syrian state media, Assad framed the attack as part of a terrorist conspiracy against his government and praised the slain preacher, Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti.

"Your works full of truthfulness and belief were the best expression of the essence and light of Islam in confronting the powers of darkness and extremist thought that considers others infidels," Assad was quoted as saying by the SANA news agency.

He blamed "terrorists" — his standard shorthand for the opposition — for the attack, and vowed to "purge our country of them."

"And this is a promise from the Syrian people, and I am one of them, that your blood, that of your grandson and the blood of all today's martyrs and all martyrs of the homeland will not go in vain," the statement from Assad said.

Al-Buti, Syria's best-known cleric and the most prominent religious figure killed so far in the conflict, had supported the regime since the early days of Assad's father and predecessor, the late President Hafez Assad, providing legitimacy to their rule. Sunnis are the majority sect in Syria while Assad is from the minority Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Right put the death toll in the bombing at 52. No group claimed responsibility for the blast.

The exile opposition Syrian National Coalition blamed Assad's government for the attack, arguing that the bomber could have only reached the heavily guarded mosque with regime support.

"He who does not hesitate to bomb mosques, universities and bakeries and target residential areas with Scud missiles cannot be expected to refrain from carrying out terrorist explosions that kill innocent Syrian civilians," the statement said.

Coalition leader Mouaz al-Khatib, who rose to prominence preaching in the same historic mosque as al-Buti, acknowledged their political differences.

"We almost never agreed with his political opinions and we see his position toward rulers as not theologically sound, but we view his killing as a crime that opens the doors of evil that only God knows," al-Khatib said on his Facebook page.

He suggested the regime had a hand in the bombing, saying he thought al-Buti was changing his views on the civil war.

"We think the regime liquidated him, fearing that a courageous position from him would flip the entire balance," he said.

Al-Buti's killing exposed the weak links between the rebel fighters on the ground and their purported political leadership, and it could boost the government's argument that Islamic extremists dominate the uprising.

In Amman, Jordan, President Barack Obama said Assad is sure to go but added that he was worried about Syria becoming a haven for extremists afterward.

Standing beside King Abdullah II of Jordan, Obama said the international community must work together to ensure there is a credible opposition ready to take over.

"Something has been broken in Syria, and it's not going to be put back together perfectly immediately — even after Assad leaves," Obama said. "But we can begin the process of moving it in a better direction, and having a cohesive opposition is critical to that."

Al-Buti's killing came near the start of the third year of the Syrian crisis, with rebel and regime forces largely stalemated and an estimated 70,000 people dead. The opposition is trying to get organized enough to provide basic services to people in rebel-held areas and better coordinate the hundreds of independent groups fighting across Syria.

Earlier this week, the coalition elected an interim prime minister. Coalition members hope U.S.-educated Ghassan Hitto will encourage world powers to back the rebels with badly needed funding and weapons.

But so far, the coalition has failed to project its authority inside of Syria or exercise any control over the groups fighting Assad on the ground, many of them fueled by extremist ideologies and calling for an Islamic state.

Most expect it was one of those groups that killed al-Buti, reflecting how little the opposition's exile leadership has over groups on the ground.

Hilal Khashan, political scientist at the American University in Beirut, dismissed opposition claims that the regime killed al-Buti and said it was unlikely that the killing would cause many Syrians to changes sides in the war.

Although a Sunni Muslim like most of the rebels, al-Buti's continued defense of Assad pushed many in his sect away long ago.

"Sunnis who are against Assad have already made their choice and gone to the opposition, and I don't think that those in the opposition who are condemning it are really against it," he said.

Instead, the attack — the conflict's first suicide bombing inside a mosque — could mark the start of a dark new stage in the civil war.

"Attacking a mosque and killing worshippers is not a blow to the government or a victory for the opposition," Khashan said. "I see it as a small example of what will happen in post-Assad Syria."

Al-Buti's funeral is scheduled for Saturday in Damascus following noon prayers. Assad declared it a day of mourning.

Also Friday, the U.N.'s top human rights body extended its investigation into suspected abuses in Syria through March 2014, a half-year longer than originally proposed.

The panel, which began its work in August 2011, said earlier this month that it was collecting evidence on 20 alleged massacres in Syria, a reflection of the civil war's growing brutality.

Elsewhere in Syria, activists reported shelling and clashes in the northern province of Aleppo, the suburbs of Damascus and the southern province of Daraa.

In neighboring Lebanon, pro- and anti-Assad gunmen fought in the northern port city of Tripoli, leaving six people dead and more than 20 wounded, according to state-run National News Agency. Clashes between the Sunni neighborhood of Bab Tabbaneh, which supports Syria's rebels, and the adjacent Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, which supports Assad, have broken out repeatedly in recent months.

Also in Tripoli, the Lebanese army said a soldier was killed and several others wounded in an army raid to capture several gunmen.

Syria's crisis began with political protests in March 2011 and has since become a civil war.

Many fear that violence in Syria could unsettle Lebanon since the countries share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries that are easily enflamed.

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Associated Press writer John Heilprin contributed reporting from Geneva.

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Syria: 42 killed in Damascus mosque bombing

By Steve Keating ORLANDO, Florida, March 20 (Reuters) - Rory McIlroy's decision to skip the Arnold Palmer Invitational surprised the tournament host, who expressed his disappointment on Wednesday that the world number one was not at Bay Hill this week. The 83-year-old Palmer said he had jokingly suggested he might break McIlroy's arm if he did not show up but did not try to force the young Northern Irishman into making an appearance. "Frankly, I thought he was going to play, and I was as surprised as a lot of people when he decided he was not going to play," said Palmer. ...

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Damascus mosque blast kills 42 including senior Syrian imam

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An explosion at a mosque in the Syrian capital on Thursday killed at least 42 people, including a senior pro-government Muslim cleric, and wounded 84, the Syrian health ministry said.

State television and anti-government activists earlier had reported 15 dead. The television said a "terrorist suicide blast" hit the Iman Mosque in central Damascus, and Mohammed al-Buti, imam of the ancient Ummayyad Mosque, was among the dead.

"The death toll from the suicide bombing of the Iman Mosque in Damascus is 42 martyrs and 84 wounded," the health ministry said later in a statement.

While attacks in the capital during Syria's two-year-long rebellion have become almost commonplace, an attack on a mosque was deeply shocking to both sides in the conflict.

Buti, a government-appointed cleric reviled by the Syrian opposition movement, delivered the official weekly Friday mosque sermons on state television.

In one of his televised speeches, Buti described those fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad as 'scum'. He also used his position to call on Syrians to join the armed forces and help Assad defeat his rivals in the rebellion.

Rebel spokesman Loay Maqdad said units associated with the opposition's Free Syrian Army were not behind the attack.

"We in the Free Syrian Army do not take any responsibility for this operation. We do not do these types of suicide bombings and we do not target mosques," he told Al Arabiya television.

Video released by Syria's al-Ikhbariya channel showed dozens of limp bodies lying on the bloodied carpet of the mosque, as emergency workers rushed in to give survivors first aid. Mangled limbs lay among the wreckage.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said earlier that around 15 people died in the blast in central Damascus.

The Observatory said it was unclear if the explosion was caused by a car bomb or a mortar shell. Dozens more were wounded in the attack it said.

The Iman mosque is next door to the offices of Assad's ruling Baath party, as well as other government compounds.

Locals were panicked after the blast and described seeing ambulances rushing to the area while traffic came to a standstill. Residents near the mosque said the strong, acrid smell of gun powder still hung in the air.

"RECEIVING GOD'S WRATH"

Buti, 84, led the funeral prayers for Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad.

The imam's critics saw him as a religious mouthpiece in support of Assad. When the revolt started in March 2011, he quickly threw his support behind the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

Buti was a Sunni Muslim, the sect which makes up the majority of Syria's population.

Sunnis have led the revolt against Assad, a movement that began as peaceful protests but devolved into bloody civil war that has sparked sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Assad's minority Alawite population.

It was unclear who was behind the Damascus blast, although Syria TV immediately accused "terrorists," a term frequently used to described rebels. If opposition fighters were responsible, it would signal the ease with which they are able to strike in the heart of the capital compared to a year ago.

Some opposition activists argued the rebels could not have been behind the attack, and called it a government plot. They said it was unlikely that rebels, many of whom are deeply religious, would target a mosque.

"The regime eliminated Buti," said Leena al-Shami, a Damascus activist speaking on Skype. "One of the last things he said is that Assad is the prince of Muslims and Syrians fight with him, as in jihad (holy war).

"I don't think Buti could have done more, his role was over. Now the regime wanted to make a martyr of him."

Some locals recalled one of Buti's more memorable sermons from early on in the revolt, in which he told President Assad he had a vision that Syria would 'receive God's wrath', but would survive.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Fierce clashes near landmark mosque in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels battled government troops near a landmark 12th century mosque in the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday, while fierce clashes raged around a police academy west of the city, activists said.

The fighting near the Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City threatened to further damage the historic structure, part of which was burned during clashes last year.

Since July 2012, government forces and rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad have been battling over Aleppo, the country's largest city and a major prize in the civil war. While rebels have gradually expanded the amount of turf under their control, seven months of street fighting, airstrikes and shelling have left much of the city, considered one of Syria's most beautiful, in ruins.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense clashes with heavy gunfire and explosions near the mosque. Syria's state news agency said "terrorists" had detonated explosives near the building's south wall, causing "material damages."

Assad's regime refers to the opposition as "terrorists."

The mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Aleppo, sits near a medieval covered market in the Old City, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The mosque was heavily damaged in October, 2012, just weeks after a fire gutted the market.

Syria's nearly 2-year-old civil war has left its mark on other gems of the country's rich archaeological and cultural heritage.

At least five of Syria's six World Heritage sites have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNESCO, the U.N.'s cultural agency. Looters have broken into one of the world's best-preserved Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, and ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra have been damaged.

Both rebels and regime forces have turned some of Syria's significant historic sites into bases, including citadels and Turkish bath houses, while thieves have stolen artifacts from archaeological excavations and, to a lesser extent, museums.

To the west of Aleppo, activists reported fresh fighting Tuesday near the police academy that has become a key government military installation.

The Observatory said the two sides were shelling each other's positions while the government launched airstrikes in the area.

Video posted online in recent days shows rebel groups firing homemade rockets and mortars at the academy and blasting it with captured tanks. The videos appeared genuine and corresponded with other Associated Press reporting.

The Observatory said the dead in the last two days of fighting in the area included 26 rebel fighters, 40 soldiers and five pro-government militiamen.

The police academy, which activists say the government has turned into a military base, has recently emerged as a new front in the battle for Aleppo. Losing the facility would hinder the regime's ability to shell opposition areas and support its troops inside the city.

An Aleppo activist who goes by the name Abu al-Hassan said via Skype that rebels coming from Idlib province to the west are now trying to clear the army from residential areas near the academy before they attack it.

"Yesterday and today they have been trying to go forward but there are lots of shelling and airstrikes," he said.

The fighting has largely destroyed Aleppo and caused humanitarian conditions for the city's remaining civilians to plummet.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said more than 141 people, including 71 children, had been killed in at least four missile strikes by the Syrian government in and near the city of Aleppo last week. The New York-based group said the strikes hit residential areas and called them an "escalation of unlawful attacks against Syria's civilian population."

A Human Rights Watch researcher who visited the sites said up to 20 buildings were destroyed in each area hit by a missile. There were no signs of any military targets in the residential districts, located in rebel-held parts of Aleppo and its northern countryside, said Ole Solvang, the researcher.

"The extent of the damage from a single strike, the lack of (military) aircraft in the area at the time, and reports of ballistic missiles being launched from a military base near Damascus overwhelmingly suggest that government forces struck these areas with ballistic missiles," HRW said in its report.

It added that the Aleppo neighborhoods hit were Jabal Badro, Tariq al-Bab and Ard al-Hamra. The fourth strike documented by the group was in Tel Rifat, north of the city.

UNICEF said in a statement that it is "appalled" by the deaths of children, and called on all parties in the conflict to "ensure that civilians — and children especially — are protected, at all times."

Syria has never acknowledged the strikes, and portrays the conflict as a foreign conspiracy carried out by "terrorists" to weaken the country.

The missile attacks have outraged the leaders of Syria's exiled opposition who have accused their Western backers of indifference to the suffering of civilians caught up in the conflict.

Also Tuesday, the Observatory said the death toll in a car bomb attack in Damascus had risen to eight. All were regime security officers, it said.

The blast late Monday struck a security checkpoint in the neighborhood of Qaboun, less than a kilometer (mile) from Abbasid Square, northeast of downtown. It was followed by several other smaller blasts thought to be mortar shells landing in various districts of the capital.

The explosions and subsequent gunfire caused panic among residents who hid in their apartments.

Syria's state news agency said the blast was caused by a suicide car bomber and caused an unspecified number of casualties.

The U.N. says some 70,000 have been killed since Syria's conflict began in March 2011.

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Associated Press writer Ryan Lucas contributed to this report.

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