{"id":1229,"date":"2007-10-01T01:16:08","date_gmt":"2007-10-01T01:16:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-01T20:26:50","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T20:26:50","slug":"radical-syrian-cleric-shot-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/radical-syrian-cleric-shot-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Syrian cleric ‘shot dead’"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Syrian cleric suspected of recruiting foreign militants to fight in <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Iraq<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> has been shot dead in the northern Syrian city of <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:city>Aleppo<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, his aides have said. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

Sheikh Mahmoud Abu al-Qaqaa was shot several times by a gunman as he left the Imam Mosque after Friday prayers. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The gunman tried to flee the scene of the shooting, but was chased by a crowd and later arrested, the aides said. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Correspondents say Abu al-Qaqaa was a charismatic Sunni cleric with thousands of radical Islamist followers in <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Syria<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

His anti-American sermons attracted a wide audience after the US-led invasion in <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Iraq<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> in 2003, and his reputation rapidly spread. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The BBC’s Kim Ghattas, who has interviewed the sheikh, notes that assassinations are highly unusual in <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Syria<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

She says there are a number of stories concerning why he was killed, some of them contradictory, but adds that he does appear to have been instrumental in channelling jihadis into <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Iraq<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

‘American agent’<\/span><\/b> <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

After the shooting, one aide to the cleric told the Associated Press that "terrorists" had killed the sheikh, whose real name was Mahmoud Qul Aghassi, for his "nationalist positions". <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Another aide, Sheikh Samir Abu Khashbeh, said the gunman had told him that he had killed the cleric "because he was an agent of the Americans". <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

"The one who carried out the assassination was a prisoner of the American forces in <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Iraq<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> and had been released some time ago," Abu Khashbeh said. "He is known to us." <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

In June 2006, a group of militants killed while attempting to carry out an attack in the capital, <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:city>Damascus<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, were found to be carrying CDs of sermons by Abu al-Qaqaa in which he called for US forces in the <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place>Middle East<\/span><\/st1:place> to be slaughtered "like cattle". <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Afterwards, the sheikh denied he had called on Syrians to go to war in <\/span><\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>Iraq<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Others have claimed that Abu al-Qaqaa was an agent of the Syrian government, who was used to appease rising anti-American discontent amongst the country’s Muslims and to keep the authorities informed of the activities of his fellow jihadists. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Abu al-Qaqaa is said to have kept a low profile in the last year since he was appointed head of a religious school by the Syrian government and he did not openly criticise the authorities. <\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The Syrian government has yet to make an official statement about the incident.<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Syrian cleric suspected of recruiting foreign militants to fight in Iraq has been shot dead in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, his aides have said. Sheikh Mahmoud Abu al-Qaqaa was shot several times by a gunman as he left the Imam Mosque after Friday prayers. The gunman tried to flee the scene of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-syria"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}