Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
May 30, 2014, Haaretz
The U.S. State Department on Friday confirmed that an American citizen carried out a suicide bombing in Syria.
The bomber, who called himself Abu Hurayra al-Amriki, carried out one of four suicide bombings on May 25 in Syria’s Idlib province on behalf of Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaida’s affiliate fighting to oust the government of President Bashar Assad.
“I can confirm this individual was a U.S. citizen involved in a suicide bombing in Syria,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a news briefing.
The bomber was in his 20s, of Middle Eastern descent, and grew up in Florida the New York Times said, citing two senior law enforcement officials. U.S. authorities learned he was in Syria over the past year, and officials said it was probably the first incident of an American involved in a suicide bombing in Syria, the newspaper said.
Earlier this week, social media postings, including Twitter messages and a video posted on YouTube, showed Abu Hurayra posing in a still picture with three other suicide bombers, one of whom was Syrian. The other two were foreigners.
The video shows a truck-sized vehicle being loaded with explosives and then cuts to a long-shot of a fortress-like structure on top of a hill being blown up.
According to Shiraz Maher, a researcher with a University of London think tank, last week, an Al-Qaida media outlet issued a short promotional video about a forthcoming film related to an “American” fighter in Syria.
The teaser, which opens with a graphic of a burning American flag and an exhortation to “Join the Caravan of Jihad and Martyrdom,” promotes a longer video featuring “The story of an American Muhajir (visitor) in Sham (Syria).”
The short video includes a brief sound bite in which a man with an American or Canadian accent, whose face is blurred, declares: “It is huq (right) on you to fight.”
