Then again, the presence of al-Qaeda is blatantly obvious, as demonstrated by this suicide bombing on May 2nd:
Damascus (AP) — The latest suicide bombings in the Syrian capital showed an increasing ruthlessness: The attackers struck during rush hour, setting off one blast to draw a crowd before unleashing a much bigger one, killing 55 people and leaving the street strewn with rubble and mangled bodies.
For many, the Al Qaeda-style tactics recall those once familiar in the country’s eastern neighbor, Iraq, raising fears that Syria’s conflict is drifting further away from the Arab Spring calls for political change and closer to a bloody insurgency.
“Syria is slowly but surely turning into another Iraq,” said Bilal Y. Saab, a Syria expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
The presence of Al Qaeda militants and other extremists adds a wild card element to the Syria conflict that could further hamper international efforts to end it. While world powers and U.N. observers in Syria can pressure the government and the opposition to stick to special envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan, they have no means of influencing shadowy Islamic militants who often don’t claim their own attacks.
Western officials say there is little doubt that Al Qaeda-affiliated extremists have made inroads in Syria since the popular uprising against President Bashar Assad began 14 months ago. But much remains unclear about their numbers, influence and activities inside Syria.
“We do have intelligence that indicates that there is an Al Qaeda presence in Syria, but frankly we don’t have very good intelligence as to just exactly what their activities are,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
Panetta said he didn’t know whether Al Qaeda was connected to the latest bombings in Damascus.
Amateur videos posted online provide occasional glimpses of extremist activity.
One video posted this week shows a suicide attack that reportedly took place on May 2 in the northern town of Idlib. In the footage, a white van speeds toward an army checkpoint and erupts into a huge ball of flame as it nears the soldiers, sending their bodies flying 9 [seen above – Zip].