Al Qaeda-linked Islamists destroy Sufi shrine in eastern Syria

AMMAN (Reuters) - A Sufi Muslim shrine was blown up in eastern Syria on Sunday, opposition activists said, blaming al Qaeda-affiliated militants who have joined in the increasingly sectarian civil war.

Militants placed explosives at the shrine of Sheikh Eissa Abdelqader al-Rifaiy in the rebel-held town of Busaira, 45 km (30 miles) east of the provincial capital of Deir al-Zor, and detonated them on Sunday morning, they said.

The activists contacted by Reuters said they suspected al Qaeda-linked fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were behind the explosion.

"The Islamic State has a base outside the town. The ease by which they got to the shrine indicates that their presence is growing," activist Abu al-Tayyeb al-Deiri said from Deir al-Zor.

Video footage and a photo released by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group showed the shrine reduced to a field of shattered rock and twisted metal with trees and a small domed building in the background.

Several graves and other sites belonging to the Sufi sect, a mystical school of Islam opposed by puritanical Salafists from which al Qaeda draws its ranks, have been burnt or destroyed in the province in the past few months, opposition sources said.

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