Bombings kill 119 amid truce push
Daesh claims responsibility for series of attacks in Damascus and the central city of Homs
Image Credit: AP
APScene of attackOnlookers gather at the scene of car bomb attacks in Homs’ pro-government neighbourhood of Zahraa yesterday.
Published: 23:14 February 21, 2016
SAYYIDA ZEINAB, Syria: Separate bomb attacks claimed by the Daesh group in Syria on Sunday killed at least 119 people as Washington pursued efforts for a ceasefire.
As US Secretary of State John Kerry said a provisional deal had been reached on the terms of a truce, violence intensified on the ground.
Double car bombings killed at least 57 people and wounded dozens in the Al Zahraa district of the central city of Homs, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
And near Damascus, a series of bomb attacks, including a car bombing, ripped through the area of the Sayyida Zeinab Shiite shrine and killed 62 people, the monitor said.
Daesh later said it was behind the carnage.
State television footage from Homs showed emergency workers carrying a burnt body on a stretcher past devastated shops and mangled cars and minibuses.
The attack was the worst since twin blasts in October 2014 hit a school, killing at least 55 people, including 49 children.
Al Zahraa — whose residents are mostly from the same Alawite sect as Syria’s ruling clan — has been regularly targeted.
Daesh, which last month claimed a double bombing that killed 22 people, said it carried out the latest attack. Two of its fighters drove explosive-laden cars into crowds of residents, it said in an online statement.
The group also said two of its suicide bombers carried out the Sayyida Zeinab bombings.
State television said a car bombing and two suicide attacks hit the area, killing 30 and wounding dozens, whereas the Observatory gave a death toll of 62 in four attacks.
Daesh was also behind a massive attack in January that killed 70 people near the shrine, which contains the grave of a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and is revered by Shiites.
Kerry-Lavrov talks
The attacks came even as a ‘provisional’ ceasefire deal, which world powers have been pushing in Syria was meant to take effect by Friday.
The latest bombings came as Kerry said he had spoken with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and agreed on how to implement a ceasefire.
“We have reached a provisional agreement, in principle, on the terms of the cessation of hostilities that could begin in the coming days,” Kerry said in Amman.
“It is not yet done and I anticipate that our presidents, President (Barack) Obama and President (Vladimir) Putin, may well speak somewhere in the next days or so in order to try to complete this task.”
World powers proposed the truce just over a week ago as part of a plan that also included expanded humanitarian access, in a bid to pave the way for peace talks to resume.
The talks, which collapsed earlier this month in Geneva, had been scheduled to resume on February 25, but the UN’s Syria envoy has already acknowledged that date is no longer realistic.
On Saturday, key opposition umbrella group the High Negotiations Committee said it would agree a temporary truce only if regime backers halted fire.
HNC chief Riad Hijab said any ceasefire must be reached “with international mediation and with guarantees obliging Russia, Iran and their sectarian militias and mercenaries to stop fighting”.
Al Assad, meanwhile, told Spain’s El Pais newspaper he was “ready” for a ceasefire, but said it should not be exploited by “terrorists”.
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