Damascus shrine bomb blasts kill 62, DAESH claims attacks
Provisional agreement reached on cease-fire
BEIRUT, Feb 21, (Agencies): The Islamic State jihadist group said it carried out two suicide bombing attacks Sunday near a Shiite shrine south of Syria’s capital that a monitoring group said killed 62 people.
IS said two militants blew themselves up at the Sayyida Zeinab shrine area, although state television and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported three bomb attacks.
Meanwhile, at least 50 Islamic State group fighters have been killed in the last 24 hours in an advance by Syrian government forces east of Aleppo city, a monitor said Sunday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighters were killed in clashes as well as strikes by Russian forces that are waging an aerial campaign in support of government troops.
Since Saturday morning, Syrian government forces have taken more than a dozen villages from IS jihadists around a stretch of highway that runs east from the northern city of Aleppo to the Kweyris military base.
The advances have consolidated government control over the stretch of highway leading to Kweyris, which they seized in November.
“The army has encircled IS in 16 villages south of the road. The regime wants to take these villages to consolidate its position in the east and southeast of the province,” said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.
The advances follow a major regime operation in northern Aleppo against rebel forces that has allowed them to virtually surround the opposition-held east of Aleppo city.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that a “provisional agreement” has been reached on a Syrian cease-fire that could begin in the next few days, but he acknowledged that it’s not finalized and all parties might not automatically comply.
Explosions meanwhile ripped through the central Syrian city of Homs and a Damascus suburb, killing dozens of people, and government forces backed by Russian warplanes pressed a major offensive north of Aleppo that has undermined previous efforts to halt the fighting.
Kerry said he discussed the terms with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and said the two must now reach out to the opposing forces in the conflict. He declined to go into the details of the agreement, saying it “is not yet done.”
“The modalities for a cessation of hostilities are now being completed,” Kerry said. “We are closer to a cease-fire today than we have been. A cessation of hostilities ... is possible over the course of these next hours.” He said he hoped President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would talk soon and that implementation could then begin.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Kerry spoke on the phone Sunday for a second day in a row and discussed “the modality and conditions” for a ceasefire that would exclude groups that the UN Security Council considers terrorist organizations.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks published Sunday that his government was ready to take part in a truce as long as it is not used by militants to reinforce their positions.
“We announced that we’re ready,” Assad told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.
“It’s about preventing other countries, especially Turkey, from sending more recruits, more terrorists, more armaments, or any kind of logistical support to those terrorists,” Assad said in English in the interview, which was also carried by state news agency SANA.
Assad’s government refers to all the armed groups battling to overthrow him as terrorists. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the leading supporters of the insurgents.
Assad’s forces have almost completely surrounded the northern city of Aleppo. He said the operation is not about “recapturing the city. Actually, it’s about closing the roads between Turkey and between the terrorist groups.”
The United States, Russia and other world powers agreed Feb 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva. Aid shipments were allowed into several besieged areas last week but the deadline for the cease-fire passed with no letup in the fighting.
President Bashar al-Assad says he wants to be remembered 10 years from now as the person who saved Syria, according to an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais published on Saturday.
Assad, whose fate has been a key sticking point in efforts to end Syria’s bloody civil war as it enters its sixth year, left open the question of whether he would still be president by then.
And he said he was ready to implement a long-sought ceasefire, but only if the rebels and their international backers such as Turkey did not use it as a chance to gain ground.
“In 10 years, if I can save Syria as president — but that doesn’t mean I’m still going to be president in 10 years, I’m just talking about my vision of the 10 years,” he said in an interview published on the newspaper’s website.
“If Syria is safe and sound, and I’m the one who saved his country — that’s my job now, that’s my duty”.