In an interview aired on Syria TV on Thursday, Basil Mohammad al-Ali admitted taking part in killing journalists and employees in al-Ikhbariya building and looting channel’s properties before bombing it.
In the early morning of 27 June 2012, a group of gunmen attacked the main building of the Syrian al-Ikhbariya News Channel in Damascus countryside. Three staff members and four security guards were killed during the attack on the headquarters of the TV station.
The assailants ransacked the building and planted explosives in the studios and blew them all up.
Al-Ali said they received assistances from their Israeli supporters in the occupied Golan Height for carrying out the attack.
He said they were informed by al-Hajji, the group leader, to target al-Ikhbaria channel because it was a “tendentious channel”, as al-Hajji described it, that broadcasts news about al-Nusra crimes.
According to al-Ali, al-Nusra men started monitoring the al-Ikhbariya building from a farm owned by a Saudi man called Abu Hussein al-Dairi.
They attacked al-Dairi’s farm and “whipped” him and forced him to cooperate with them and join them to monitor the channel building through the farm.
Al-Ali was a blacksmith and contributed in manufacturing and installing some of the channel equipment.
He said the terrorist group which he was working with was also responsible for bombing headquarters of Syria’s military judiciary.
His group also stormed Hospital of the martyr Mamdouh Abaza in Quneitra and looted medical equipment and drugs from the hospital to be used in treating the terrorists who were injured during the clashes with the Syrian Army.
Syria crisis started as pro-reform protests but with interventions by the United States, UK and their regional and Western allies it soon turned to a massive insurgency which took in numerous terrorist groups from all over Europe and the Middle East to wage one of the bloodiest wars the region has ever experienced.
The war, which many fear is turning to a “war of hatred”, has already taken more than 90,000 lives.