Syria Today | Syrian TV airs alleged bombers’ confessions

Syrian TV airs alleged bombers’ confessions

Syrian state television aired confessions from alleged members of the Islamic fundamentalist group Fatah al-Islam claiming responsibility for September’s suicide bomb attack in Damascus on November 6.

The broadcast showed the confessions of 12 alleged members of Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni fundamentalist group which first emerged in Lebanon’s refugee camps in November 2006 as a splinter group of the Damascus-backed Palestinian faction Fatah al-Intifada.

The alleged bombers confessed they helped plan the September 27 attack close to a Syrian security building on the outskirts of Damascus. The confessors included Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and one Yemeni national.

Abdel Baqi al-Hussein, a 30-year-old Syrian from Idleb, identified himself as the security chief of the cell in the broadcast. He said the explosives had been smuggled across the borders from Lebanon and that the suicide bomber was a Saudi national called Abu Aisha who carried out the bombing in a stolen car from Iraq.

“Abu Aisha was smuggled into Syria,” Hussein said. “He drove the car packed with explosives and blew himself up in a street in southern Damascus.”

Hussein said the objective of the attack was to “harm the Syrian government”. He said the bombing was planned during a series of secret meetings with several other Fatah al-Islam members in Lebanon in June and July of 2008. Other confessors said they had carried out a series of armed robberies to finance the attack. They also revealed plans to attack Syrian security posts and the Central Bank of Syria in downtown Damascus, as well as British and Italian diplomats.

Wafa al-Abssi, the daughter of Fatah al-Islam chief Shaker al-Abssi, said the group received funding from Saad Hariri’s Future Movement in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Wafa’s husband, Yasser Enad, claimed finance also flowed in from Saudi nationals.

None of the confessors revealed how soon after the bombing Syrian security services picked them up. Whilst the programme showed footage of weapons, explosives and passports purportedly belonging to the cell, details about when, where and how they had been obtained were not disclosed.

The confessors said they had last seen Shaker al-Abssi in a village outside Damascus where they were all staying before the attack. Hussein speculated he was now either in Iraq, Lebanon or imprisoned in Syria.

The Future Movement released a statement on November 7 denying any links to Fatah al-Islam. A fax sent to media outlets in Beirut on November 10, claiming to be from Fatah al-Islam, denied responsibility for the bombing and the allegations of the confessors.