Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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Sweida, SANA – A Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist named al-Wafed Abu Turaba admitted responsibility for the twin terrorist car bombings that rocked Sweida city on Friday, according to Head of the Security Committee in Sweida.
He said in a statement to SANA that Abu Turaba, who was arrested on Sunday, admitted to participating in the attacks on the Military Police, the Criminal Security Department and the Municipality in the city on Friday, in addition to vandalism and robbery acts.
The explosions, which took place in two different areas in Sweida city, left 38 people killed and dozens of others injured.
SANA reporter quoted a source at Sweida Police Command as saying in exclusive statements that Abu Turaba, born in 1969, confessed that he stopped a taxi the day before the explosions, killed the driver Omar Harb Qarqamaz, whose body was later found on the afternoon of the same day, and packed the car with large quantities of explosives before he parked it at Ein al-Marj site on Dahr al-Jabal.
Abu Turaba went on saying that he and his terrorist group blew up the car at the moment when Sheikh Wahid al-Balous of al-Muwahhidin Muslims was passing in a convoy of several cars. Al-Balous and some people were killed, and others were injured, according to the source.
The terrorist added that two hours later, his group also blew up another car bomb outside the National Hospital where the families of the first explosion’s victims gathered, killing and injuring dozens of people.
A number of sheikhs of al-Muwahhidin Muslims sect listened to the terrorist making his confessions.
Later on confessions aired by the Syrian TV, Abu Turaba said a defected colonel named Marwan al-Hamad, leader of the so-called the military council of Sweida, called him 2 months ago and said that Sheikh al-Balous is not following the instructions and should be dealt with.
Al-Hammad ordered Abu Turaba to kill al-Balous and gave him a phone number of another terrorist who is a member of a group that manufacture IEDs. Abu Turaba said they staked al-Balous with the aim of killing him but the areas that he had used in his travelling were plain and fleeing them undetected would have been very difficult.
Abu Turaba said he was told al-Balous was heading for Sali village after ten days and he set the IEDs, adding that they planned to blow up the explosives then open fire on al-Balous convoy, adding that two explosive devices were planted; one on the road to Sali village and the other near the national Hospital, the purpose was to kill as many of the relatives and friends of al-Balous because they would go to hospital when they know he was ambushed.
Sheikh Akel (title for senior figures within al-Muwahidin Muslims) Hikmat al-Hajri told SANA in a statement that the confessions of Abu Turaba reveal the “terrorist and obscurantist mentality” that aims at driving a wedge between the locals and the state institutions.
He called upon the people of Sweida to be careful of what is being plotted to create dissension and sow chaos in the province and not make hasty judgments so as to preserve Syria’s unity.
The spiritual leadership of al-Muwahhidin Muslims in the country denounced the terrorist bombings in a statement on Saturday and said they aimed at disrupting “our national fabric and igniting sedition.”
According to the statement, the explosions were carried out by “the gangs of terror” who are “bothered by the unity binding the locals of Sweida province and the army members.”
