Syria Live: The Back-and-Forth Battle in Aleppo
2150 GMT: Video of Al-Bouti's Assassination. Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti, often considered Syria's top Sunni cleric, was a staunch supporter of the regime and was killed on the 21st of March by a bomb in a mosque in Damascus. Now, a video, we believe originally posted to a Facebook page, reportedly shows his assassination. The video may be disturbing to some viewers.
Here's what we know. That is Mohamed al-Bouti, and that looks like the Eman Mosque. From this video, this event shows none of the marks of a car bomb, which matches our initial suggestion that the bomb looked like it went off inside the mosque. More interestingly, this may put to rest the question of whether Bouti was assassinated or whether he was collateral damage - he appears to be the target of this attack.
There are many questions about this bizarre video, however. For starters, we appear to be watching video of another screen, perhaps a cell phone or camera, that is playing the video. In other words, we're watching a video of a video. The camera inside the mosque may be hidden. When the explosion goes off, a hole can be seen, perhaps the hole through which the camera is taking the video. In fact, the camera appears to be pushed back and knocked slightly off angle by the explosion. But who filmed this and why was it kept secret? Where is this camera and why does the "hole" visible in the middle of the vido then disappear. We have theories, but we're still analyzing the video.