Beirut (dpa) – Thousands of Syrians Saturday mourned the deaths of 44 people killed in twin suicide bombings a day earlier in Damascus, as the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's long-banned opposition group, scotched reports it was involved in the attacks. “The Muslim Brotherhood denies such claims,” Sheikh Anas Airout, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told dpa by phone from Ankara. He accused the Syrian intelligence service of creating a fake website for the group and posting on it a statement in which the Muslim Brotherhood “claimed responsibility” for the attack. “It is not within the ethics of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood to kill their own people,” Airout quoted the head of the group, Zuheir Salem, as saying. Two suicide bombers Friday blew up cars in a highly secured area in the Syrian capital, targeting state security offices. More than 100 people were wounded, according to government media. The authorities immediately blamed al-Qaeda for the attack. But the opposition claimed President Bashar al-Assad's government could be responsible. “The regime was bent on giving a bloody reception to (a team of) Arab League observers to distract attention away from the weekly protests across the country,” said the Muslim Brotherhood in a statement. On Saturday, a massive funeral was held in Damascus for the victims of the bombings. Amid the wailing of women, men and children, dozens of coffins were carried through the streets of Damascus towards a mosque for a special prayer before burial, witnesses told dpa. The coffins were draped in the national flag, and people threw rose petals and rice on the funeral procession, the witnesses said. “Those are the martyrs of free Syria,” chanted a crowd of mourners outside the mosque. In his sermon, Sheikh Mohammed Ramadan al-Bouti said: “That was the gift of Burhan Ghalyon (the head of the Syrian National Council) and his comrades to Syria.” Endowments Minister Mohammed Abdul-Satar al-Sayyed told the mourners: “Those acts are a real reflection of the dangerous conspiracy to which Syria is exposed.” Founded in the late 1930s, Syria's Muslim Brotherhood was banned after a 1963 coup brought the now-ruling Baath Party to power. In recent years, the group has renounced violence and adopted a pro-reform platform embracing pluralism and democracy. Membership in the group became an offense punishable by death under a law enacted in 1980. While the government revoked the law in 2011, opponents say the penalty is sill in place. The bombings, the first against the powerful security services in central Damascus since a pro-democracy uprising began in March, came a day after the arrival of an advance group of Arab League monitors to oversee the implementation of a peace plan aimed at ending the unrest in the country. According to a Syrian source, the pan-Arab organization's team met Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem on Saturday. The talks focused on the logistics of deploying 100 Arab monitors, who are expected to arrive in Syria by the end of December. Meanwhile, security forces killed 15 people on Saturday in the restive province of Homs, said Syrian activists based in Lebanon. The deaths took place in the Homs neighborhoods of Baba Amr and Khalidyeh, which witnessed heavy shelling following overnight protests against the regime, the activists said. According to United Nations estimates, more than 5,000 people have been killed in Syria since the anti-government protests started in mid-March. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/D7jX9 Tags: Al Qaeda, Bombings, Damascus, featured, Muslim Brotherhood Section: Latest News, Syria
