Suicide blasts kill dozens in Homs

Assad’s confidant and intelligence chief among those killed in attacks by Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, which threaten UN talks

BEIRUT // A top Syrian intelligence chief was among dozens killed in suicide attacks by Al Qaeda’s former branch in Syria in the government-held city of Homs yesterday. Gen Hassan Daabul, also a close confidant of president Bashar Al Assad, was among the dead after the attacks that threaten UN efforts for peace talks in Geneva.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 42 people were killed.

Bashar Al Jaafari, the regime’s envoy to the talks in Geneva, said Syria would retaliate.

“The terrorist attacks that targeted Homs today were a clear message from the sponsors of terrorism to Geneva,” Mr Al Jaafari said.

“This message has been received and we won’t allow it to pass without retaliation.”

He also demanded that all opposition parties at the talks condemned the attack or Damascus would consider them “accomplices of terrorism”.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said the attacks were designed to spoil the peace talks.

The attacks were claimed by Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, which remains listed as a terrorist group by the UN and western governments despite renouncing its links with Al Qaeda last year.

Like its rival ISIL, Fatah Al Sham is not party to a truce between government forces and rebel groups taking part in the Geneva talks.

It said five of its militants took part in the assault but Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said there were at least six attackers, and “several of them blew themselves up near the headquarters of state security and military intelligence”. Security forces locked down the city centre after the blasts. Homs has been under near full government control since May 2014 when rebels withdrew from the centre under a UN-brokered truce deal.

But it has had repeated bombings since, including twin attacks last year that killed 64.

The Observatory said three people in the Waer neighbourhood, the last rebel enclave of Homs, were among 13 people killed in regime air strikes across the country yesterday.

Six civilians were killed in raids on the besieged rebel-held town of Douma in Damascus province, and four in Khan Sheikhun, a town controlled by rebels and extremists in Idlib province. The Homs attacks came a day after 77 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a suicide bombing by ISIL in the northern Syrian town of Al Bab, which was captured this week by Turkish-backed rebels.

In Geneva, Syrian government and opposition negotiators were to continue meetings with Mr de Mistura despite little hope for a breakthrough.

After meeting the UN envoy on Friday, Mr Al Jaafari said he would study a UN paper on the “format” of the talks, but gave no indication that the negotiations had any momentum. The main opposition High Negotiations Committee called its meeting with Mr de Mistura positive, without elaborating on a possible path forward.

In three previous rounds of talks in Geneva last year, the rivals never sat at the same table.

However, the opposition committee has said that it wants to meet the government face-to-face this time.

At the end of Friday’s negotiations, Mr de Mistura’s acting chief of staff Michael Contet signalled that there was no immediate prospect of direct talks.

Syria’s opposition is in a much weaker position compared with the last round of UN-brokered talks in April last year, after losing their stronghold in east Aleppo.

Despite the battlefield setbacks, the committee still insists that Mr Al Assad step down. Damascus said the president’s future was not up for discussion.

For the UN, the talks are about “political transition”, a term contained in a Security Council resolution that provides the framework for the peace process to end a sixyear war in which more than 310,000 people have been killed.

“Transition means transferring the authorities to a transitional governance body,” opposition negotiator Basma Kodmani said. “There is no role for Bashar Al Assad.”

Mr de Mistura has admitted he was “not expecting miracles”, but hoped this round of talks could help to build some momentum towards an eventual deal.