76 killed in Damascus triple bombing, IS stakes claim

ISIS claimed responsibility for a triple bombing Sunday that killed at least 45 people and injured more than 100 others in a Damascus suburb, according to a statement circulating online from supporters of the terrorist group.

The first explosion was caused by a booby-trapped vehicle that targeted a passenger bus on the al-Sudan street in that area, state news agency SANA said, adding that after the first bombing, two suicide bombers detonated their explosives-laden belts in the crowed that gathered at the blast site.

The Syrian conflict has left more than 260,000 dead and pushed millions of people exodus, more than half the country’s population.

That same month, a bomb went off in a bus carrying Lebanese Shiites going to Sayyida Zeinab, killing nine people in an attack claimed by Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front.

The monitor had initially reported eight deaths in the blasts.

Syrian state media also reported the explosions. Syria’s police say according to preliminary data the blasts were carried out by suicide bombers near a shrine with a tomb of Zeinab, the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad. Hezbollah is a staunch ally of Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad and has dispatched fighters to bolster his troops against the uprising that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests. It is revered by Shiites and, despite the fighting in Syria, continues to be a major center of pilgrimage. Early on, the group justified its intervention in Syria by citing the threat to Sayyida Zeinab.

The Shiites are regularly targeted by jihadist groups, including EI, which consider community members as heretics.

The UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has, however, “optimistic and determined” to move forward in the path of negotiations.

Kinlling innocent people concurrent with Geneva talks, Jaberi Ansari underlined, foreign-sponsered terrorists aim at disrupting the process of political settlement of the Syrian crisis.