World Bulletin / News Desk

A suicide blast on Emevi Mosque in the Syrian capital city Damascus killed preacher Muhammad Said Ramazan el-Buti and 42 people in Syria.

Syrian state-run TV broadcast the photos of the dead and the wounded. The blast which happened in the Emevi Mosque was said to be near the Baath party building and the area which has a strategic location on the Aleppo road is protected under tight security measures.

Abdulhamid Zekeriya, the spokesperson for the Free Syrian Army, condemned the blast strongly saying that ''the suicide blast was not conducted by them''.

Emphasising the area is controlled by the Syrian regime, Zekeriya said, ''Syrian regime wanted to scandalize the revolutionaries by conducting a suicide blast. We would never attack mosques.''

Anadolu news agency said, many of Ramazan el-Buti's relatives are said to have left for Turkey Friday morning according to the sources close to Ramazan el-Buti.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared a one-day mourning throughout the country over Ramazan el-Buti's death, said the Ministry.

''I extend my condolences to Ramazan el-Buti's family, to the families of those killed in the attack and Syrian people. El-Buti became martyr while he was informing people about real religion,'' said Bashar al-Assad.

Ramazan el-Buti was born into a Kurdish family in Turkey's southerneastern town of Cizre, Sirnak in 1929. He had moved to Syria with his parents in 1933.

Ramazan el-Buti had done his PhD in Islamic law at Al-Azhar University in Egypt. He had written around 60 books about Islamic thought. Buti had been criticised for supporting Hafez al-Assad in the 1982 incidents and he had continued to support the Syrian regime since the civil war broke out in the county.