January 31, 2016 by admin

Twin blasts kill 60 near Syria shrine

Damascus, January 31
At least 60 persons were killed and 110 wounded on Sunday by a car bomb and two suicide bombers in the Sayeda Zeinab district of Damascus, where Syria’s holiest Shia shrine is located, the interior ministry said.
Sunni fundamentalist Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to Amaq, a news agency that supports the group. It said two operations “hit the most important stronghold of Shia militias in Damascus”.
State television showed footage of burning buildings and wrecked cars in the neighbourhood.
Syrian state news agency SANA, quoting an interior ministry source, said a group of militants had detonated a car bomb near a public transport garage in the neighborhood’s Koua Sudan area.
Two suicide bombers then blew themselves up nearby as people were being rescued. The heavily populated area in the south of the city is a site of pilgrimage for Shi’ites from Iran, Lebanon and other parts of the Muslim world.
The explosions occurred as representatives of Syria’s government and its divided opposition began convening in Geneva for the first UN-mediated peace talks in two years.