In a televised address Saturday, al-Maliki defended the security forces and blamed an alliance of the Baath Party and al Qaeda for Wednesday's bombings.
In new video footage opposition activists posted online Saturday, Raqqa's governor and the local head of the governing Baath Party were shown praising the al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group known as Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, which is part of a coalition of Islamist groups that control most of the province and several areas close to the Iraqi border.
Attackers in the Aleppo province city of al-Bab fired rockets at the main branch of President Bashar al-Assad's ruling Baath party Saturday, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.