US-backed plot to assassinate grand mufti of Syria fails

A US-backed plot to assassinate Syria's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Ahmad Badr el-Din Hassoun, failed due to the vigilance and swift action of the Syrian security forces.The plot was initiated and coordinated through a US-launched website, named "Paltalk". Syrian opposition forces used the website to contact each other and work out different plots to assassinate Syrian figures. In the latest terrorist plot, a member of the terrorist cell contacted Sheikh Hassoun and introduced himself as a presidential guard and asked for a meeting with the Sheikh, but his plot failed before he could meet the Syrian cleric. One of the Syrian security forces who was tasked with monitoring and pursuing the assassination plots hatched by the opposition through the Paltalk website realized the conspiracy and warned Sheikh Hassoun through a phone call minutes before the assassins could implement their plot. The US has embarked on many direct and indirect actions to ouster Bashar Assad's government. Earlier this month, Syria's Ambassador to Washington Imad Mustafa blamed the US for inciting unrests in his country, and said the White House is seeking to take political advantage from the unrests in Syria. In an interview with the Syrian TV earlier this month, Imad Mustafa said the US is seeking to stir up crisis in Syria in a bid to use it for its political intentions, and added that the US State Department's latest statements on Syria prove that "the US will spare no effort to harm Syria". He stated that the role of the US in the current crisis is multilateral. "The US role stems from a political attitude," he said, and explained, "The US and Syria have been confronting each other for decades because the Syrian stances are often unappealing to the US." Syria experienced unrest for several months with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country. The government blamed outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest was orchestrated from abroad. last month, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Bashar al-Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but the US and Israeli plots could spark some new unrests in certain parts of the country. Syrian state television has broadcast reports showing seized weapons caches and confessions by terrorist elements describing how they obtained arms from foreign sources. In confessions broadcast on the Syrian TV in September, a captured terrorist revealed the tactics used by armed terrorist groups to stir tension in Syria and the role played by the foreign elements in Syrian unrests. The terrorist, Ammar Ziyad al-Najjar, confessed that he received foreign aid and instructions from contacts in Saudi Arabia and Jordan to deface Damascus. Al-Najjar stated that he was involved in a group that received instructions on how to kidnap people and blame it on the Syrian government. The man also confessed to, among other crimes, purchasing firearms and distributing them among outlaws. He also recounted how groups of outsiders, many of whom not Syrians, showed up during the attacks on police stations in Hama. Najjar said the men would distribute food and drink to demonstrators, sometimes slipping money into the food to encourage protests and adding stimulant powders at other times.There was another type of pills that made people more aggressive - pills that were given openly to members of the foreign-backed terror squads, he explained.