Killer blasts hit Syria, UN in humanitarian bid
SYRIA: A third deadly car bombing hit a Syrian city on Sunday,
as experts from the UN and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation began a
mission to assess the humanitarian impact of the year-long conflict.
State media, charging that such bombings were intended to sabotage
efforts to find a political solution to Syria’s crisis, said Sunday’s
blast in Aleppo had killed two people, one of them a woman, and wounded
30 others.
It raised the toll from three such bombings in two days to nearly 30.
State television showed heavy damage to apartment buildings and
private cars, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the
attack targeted political security offices.Aleppo, Syria’s second
largest city and its commercial hub, was also the target of car bombings
on February 10 that killed 28 people.
On Saturday, two car bombs killed 27 people and wounded 140 others in
the heart of Damascus, mostly civilians, the interior ministry said.
It blamed “terrorists” for the attacks near police and air force
headquarters.
Damascus and Aleppo are both seen as having high levels of support
for President Bashar al-Assad.
“Yesterday’s explosions were carried out by terrorists supported by
foreign powers which finance and arm them,” said Al-Baath newspaper of
the Damascus bombings.The newspaper is the mouthpiece of Assad’s ruling
party of the same name.“The two attacks... aim to disrupt Annan’s
mission and to foil international efforts to find a political solution
to the crisis,” it said, referring to UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi
Annan.
Ath-Thawra, another official daily, accused at Qatar and Saudi
Arabia, which have called for rebels fighting the Assad regime to be
armed.
But the opposition Syrian National Council accused the regime of
staging the car bombings.
Damascus was trying to terrorise its own citizens and make it look as
if the country was under threat from Al-Qaeda, they said, calling for an
international commission of inquiry.
Technical experts from the UN and OIC were meanwhile working in Syria
to assess the humanitarian impact of the regime’s deadly crackdown on
protests since March 2011.
AFP |
