Al-Qa’ieda Blamed for Twin car bombing in Damascus

There was rare agreement between the Syrian regime, its opposition and the United States: Al-Qa’ieda was responsible for the massive double car bombing in Damascus last week that killed 55 people, including a dozen foreigners. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that U.S. intelligence pointed fingers at Al-Qa’ieda. The opposition Syrian National Council also said the explosions appeared to be the work of Al-Qa’ieda forces but they added they these were linked to the Bashar Al-Assad regime. Al-Assad’s government also blamed “terrorists” for the May 10 bombing. On Saturday, a military group with suspected links to Al-Qa’ieda issued a claim of responsibility for that attack, which also wounded 372 people in the Syrian capital. The group, which called itself Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant People, said it was in retaliation for the regime’s massacres of Sunni Muslim Syrians. Also over the weekend, Syrian government forces reportedly killed a would-be suicide bomber in the city of Aleppo whose car was laden with 1,200 kilos of explosives,