EXPLOSION HITS MOSQUE IN CENTRAL DAMASCUS

DAMASCUS MOSQUE BLAST KILLS 42
INCLUDING SENIOR SYRIAN IMAM

www.reuters.com - An explosion at a mosque in the Syrian capital on Thursday killed at least 42 people, including a senior pro-government Muslim cleric, and wounded 84, the Syrian health ministry said. State television and anti-government activists earlier had reported 15 dead. The television said a "terrorist suicide blast" hit the Iman Mosque in central Damascus, and Mohammed al-Buti, imam of the ancient Ummayyad Mosque, was among the dead. 
"The death toll from the suicide bombing of the Iman Mosque in Damascus is 42 martyrs and 84 wounded," the health ministry said later in a statement. While attacks in the capital during Syria's two-year-long rebellion have become almost commonplace, an attack on a mosque was deeply shocking to both sides in the conflict. It was unclear if the explosion was caused by a car bomb or a mortar shell.

Buti, a government-appointed cleric reviled by the Syrian opposition movement, delivered the official weekly Friday mosque sermons on state television. In one of his televised speeches, Buti described those fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad as 'scum'. He also used his position to call on Syrians to join the armed forces and help Assad defeat his rivals in the rebellion. 
Rebel spokesman Loay Maqdad said units associated with the opposition's Free Syrian Army were not behind the attack. "We in the Free Syrian Army do not take any responsibility for this operation. We do not do these types of suicide bombings and we do not target mosques," he told Al Arabiya television. Video released by Syria's al-Ikhbariya channel showed dozens of limp bodies lying on the bloodied carpet of the mosque, as emergency workers rushed in to give survivors first aid. Mangled limbs lay among the wreckage.

A suicide bombing tore through a mosque in the Syrian capital Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad along with at least 41 other people. More than 80 others were wounded. Mohammad Saed Ramadan al-Bouti, 84, a cleric and religious scholar who appeared often on TV, was delivering a religious lecture at al-Eman Mosque in central Damascus' district of al-Mazraa when a suicide bomber detonated himself from inside the mosque. Suicide bombings blamed on Islamic extremists fighting with the rebels have become common in Syria's 2-year-old civil war. It is crucial to avoid sectarian dogmas and opinions and the unholy tendency to commit violence against others.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

There are Eighteen Obstacles in the way of this exquisite consummation of bhava which belongs to Vraja.  ... The Sixth Obstacle has the forms of cruelty and violence. This is the demon Aghasura. It is possible for love to suffer gradual decay by the absence of kindness for all animate beings. This must be so in as much as kindness can never be a different principle from love for Krishna. There is no substantive difference between love for Krishna and kindness to individual souls. ... The Eleventh Obstacle has the form of intra-communal discord.  It is comparable to the wild forest-fire. The disposition bred by narrow sectarianism rendering its victim unable to recognize as Vaishnava one who does to assume the external marks of the theistic community, multiples the obstacles on the path of attainment of the bone fide Guru and the actual companionship of the true devotees.

Śrīla Bhakti Vaibhava Purī Mahārāj:
“Sri Krishna : The Supreme Godhead”
“Chapter 3: The Highest Worship of Sri Krishna”
Bhakti Vigyan Nityananda Book Trust
Śrī Krishna Chaitanya Mission - http://www.purimaharaj.com/

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
http://www.vedicviews-worldnews.blogspot.com.ar/