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Assad Vows to ‘Wipe Out’ Syria’s Extremists

After top cleric, and supporter, was killed in suicide bombing.

Syrian extremists have killed the wrong Sunni cleric. Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, a top Sunni preacher and supporter of President Bashar al-Assad, was one of 42 people killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque in Damascus on Friday. In response, Assad has stated that his forces will “wipe out” and “clean our country” of the Muslim extremists he believes are responsible for the attack—the first to target a mosque since the country’s civil war began two years ago. Meanwhile, the United Nations plans to investigate whether either the Syrian government or its rebel opposition has used chemical weapons against one another, as they both have claimed.