Al Qaeda good. Shiites bad.
AMMAN, Jordan — Sunni extremists blew up a Shiite mosque in a village in eastern Syria stormed by rebels earlier this week, another sign of the sectarian hatred growing in the country's civil war, activists said Sunday.
They said that the demolition was carried out by al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria and shows the determination of extremists to drive Shiites out of the village of Hatla in the Deir el-Zour region near Iraq. Last Tuesday rebels battled pro-regime militiamen there, killing more than 60 Shiite fighters and civilians according to activists.
In amateur videos of the latest incident, fighters walked into the mosque in Hatla and trampled on books, some with covers showing pictures of Shiite clerics. It then showed an explosion that brought down the building, but its dome remained intact.
Rami Abdurrahman, founder of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the mosque was demolished Friday, three days after the battle. Other videos that emerged earlier have showed rebels cursing Shiites and suggested fighters had burned Shiite homes.
Thousands of Islamists rallied in the Egyptian capital on Friday in support of calls by Sunni Muslim clerics for a holy war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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