Qaeda in Syria adopts Suweida Intelligence Blast

 Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria has adopted the car bomb which killed at least eight security personnel on Wednesday in an attack on a military intelligence building in the southern Syrian city of Suweida, which has been largely peaceful during the Syrian civil war.

Jabhat al Nusra said in a statement issued yesterday that “A lion of Nusra Lions in Daraa had carried out the suicide bombing; he was blessed by God to storm his blast inside Suweida military intelligence building. ”

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdelrahman told AFP, “A suicide attacker detonated himself in a car bomb in front of the air force intelligence headquarters in Sweida,” Abdelrahman said a colonel was among security officers killed in the blast at the regional Air Force Intelligence headquarters in the city, populated mostly by minority Druze. Clashes erupted after the explosion, he said.

A photograph uploaded by activists showed a thick column of smoke rising above the Suweida skyline.

The state news agency SANA said the Suweida blast wounded 41 people but made no mention of the target, saying only that a “terrorist” car bomb had hit a square in the city.

Rebels have seized a ring of suburbs outside the capital but the army has blockaded these areas to try to keep central Damascus secure, according to Reuters. Insurgents have resorted to improvised bombs to strike security and political targets in government-held areas.