...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has grabbed credit for a series of attacks across Syria that left dead dozens of people, in an announcement on its radio station.
In the message broadcast Saturday on Al-Bayan radio, ISIL said it was behind kabooms targeting Kurdish new year festivities in northeast Syria and raids on government positions in the central province of Hama.
Forty-five people, including at least 12 children, were killed in twin bombings in the northeastern city of Hasakeh on Friday as they marked their new year's eve, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said people were too scared to celebrate on Saturday, fearing more attacks.
The ISIL radio station said the group detonated a car and a bike rigged with explosives in Hasakeh city, which is controlled by Kurdish fighters and Syrian regime forces.
The attacks, which took place on the bloodiest day in Syria so far this year, were widely condemned.
"Committing these barbaric crimes on this day, which amounts to a national holiday in Syria, shows that the killers have no link to the Syrian people or to their values. In fact, they lie in wait for Syrians," said the Syrian National Council, the largest bloc in the opposition National Coalition.
"This description applies to the regime of (President Bashar) al-Assad and to the Lion of Islam terrorist organizations it has produced," it said.
Syria's foreign ministry sent letters to UN Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
and the president of the UN Security Council calling for "steps to deter terrorist organizations and their funders".