Twin Damascus bombs kill 74, mostly Iraqi pilgrims
BEIRUT: Twin bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims killed 74 people in Damascus on Saturday, most of them Iraqis, a monitoring group said of one of the bloodiest attacks in the Syrian capital.
Among the victims of Saturday’s blasts were 43 Iraqi pilgrims who had come to the Syrian capital to visit Shiite shrines in Damascus’s famed Old City, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based monitor said that 11 bystanders and eight children were among those killed, as well as 20 members of progovernment security forces.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that a roadside bomb detonated as a bus carrying pilgrims made its way through the Bab al- Saghir area of the Old City before a suicide bomber blew himself up.
Syrian state television on Saturday gave a toll of 40 killed and 120 wounded by “two bombs detonated by terrorists”.
It broadcast footage of several white buses with their windows shattered, some charred and peppered with shrapnel.
Shoes, glasses and wheelchairs lay scattered on ground covered in blood.
Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Shaar said the attack targeted “pilgrims of various Arab nationalities”.
“The sole aim was to kill,” he said.
The Iraqi foreign ministry said around 40 of its nationals were among the dead and 120 among the wounded.
A witness told AFP that the second bomb exploded as passersby gathered at the scene of the first attack, and state television said a booby-trapped motorcycle was defused nearby.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Shiite shrines are a frequent target of attack for Sunni extremists of al- Qaeda and the Islamic State group ( IS), not only in Syria but also in neighbouring Iraq. The foreign ministry in Damascus condemned “the cowardly terrorist attack which comes in response to victories of the Syrian Arab Army” against jihadists.
The Sayyida Zeinab mausoleum to the south of Damascus, Syria’s most visited Shiite pilgrimage site, has been hit by several deadly bombings during the war.
Twin suicide bombings in the high-security Kafr Sousa district of the capital in January killed 10 people, eight of them soldiers.
That attack was claimed by former al- Qaeda affiliate Fateh al- Sham Front, which said that it had targeted Russian military advisers working with the Syrian army.
It was widely seen as an attempt to disrupt UN-brokered peace talks that took place the following month and which to Fateh alSham’s anger were supported by its former Islamist rebel ally Ahrar al-Sham.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has called a new round of talks for March 23.
Fateh al- Sham has been repeatedly bombed in its northwestern stronghold this year, not only by the Syrian army and its Russian ally but also by a US-led coalition battling IS in both Syria and Iraq.
The rift over the UN-brokered talks between the rebels and the government has also seen deadly clashes between jihadists and their former Islamist rebel allies.
The two groups had together seized virtually all of the northwestern province of Idlib but are now vying for territorial control.
In Baghdad, the foreign ministry blamed the Damascus attack on “takfiri groups”, referring to Sunni extremists.
The bombings could provide the impetus for increased Iraqi strikes against IS in Syria, which Baghdad has already carried out near the border.
Iraqi forces launched an operation to retake Mosul – the last IS-held city in Iraq – in October.
They recaptured its eastern side and now have their sights set on its more densely populated west. — AFP