Damascus-Cultural Festival ''Eye on the mosques in the Levant in the capitals of civilization: Damascus, Aleppo and Jerusalem'', began here on the World Week dedicated to those centers of Muslim worship.

'Extremist groups cannot defame the message of mosques in the spread of true Islam, 'he said at the opening the Syrian Minister of Religious Affairs, Muhammad Sayyed Abdul Sattar.

The date, the Minister said, is also a tribute to the burning of the Al Aqsa, Jerusalem, in 1969 and caused the destruction of roof and wooden pulpit used Salha Ed Din Ibn Ayub, Saladin.

As part of the Festival, Sattar Sayyed opened an exhibition of black and white photographs of ancient mosques of Aleppo, the Al-Aqsa and the process of restoration of the Umayyad in Damascus in 1991.

Al Aqsa, a symbol of religious Arab world, has an estimated of over 200 thousand years old and both the Palestinian resistance and the progressive movement in the Levant, have denounced plans to destroy it by the Takfiri extremism and the Zionist regime.

Syria, under five years of an imposed war, has throughout the national territory more than 23 thousand mosques, some of which were destroyed or seriously damaged by attacks from terrorist groups.