On Saturday, August 27, during special night-time prayers held during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Syrian soldiers and club-wielding gangs encircled the large Al-Rifa’i Mosque in Damascus and then attacked it, killing two people and wounding 12, according to the Local Coordinating Committee, a body representing the protestors against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The structure is also called the Kfar Susseh mosque because of its location in a quarter of Damascus with that name.  

The mosque leader, Sheikh Usama Al-Rifa’i, who is more than 80 years old, was assaulted with sticks in the melée, and left with his head and hand injured. A foreign website shows the sheikh in bed at the Andalusia hospital in the city.