Death toll up to 70 from Damascus attack

Sayida Zeinab, located 17 km (10.5 mi.) south of Damascus, is protected by Lebanon’s Shiite group Hezbollah, whose leaders have said repeatedly they will guard Syrian Shiite areas and mosques from Sunni attacks.

The attack came as Syrian government representatives and members of the opposition were gathered in Geneva before the planned – but repeatedly postponed – peace talks aimed at finding a political solution to the almost five-year conflict.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition group that monitors the conflict, said at least 63 people were killed, including 25 pro-government Shiite fighters.

Two suicide bombers then detonated explosive belts when people gathered at the scene.

The main Syrian opposition team continued to stand by its insistence that steps should be taken to implement clauses in U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with the delivery of humanitarian aid to towns besieged by government forces, the release of political prisoners and a halt to the aerial bombardments of civilian areas.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to Amaq, a news agency that supports the group.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said the bombings went off in Sayyda Zeinab, a predominantly Shiite Muslim suburb of Damascus.

According to de Mistura’s spokesperson, the envoy paid a courtesy visit to the HNC delegation and held a “short informal meeting [that was] useful in addressing issues relating to the intra-Syrian talks”.

On June 14, 2012, a suicide auto bomb tore through that district, wounding around 14 people.

The Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah has cited it as a key reason that it chose to fight on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, he adds.

More than 260,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has displaced more than half the country’s population internally and overseas. The Damascus delegation’s chief negotiator, Syria’s United Nations envoy Bashar Al-Jaafari, accused the opposition of being “not serious” about the talks.

Kerry said “The bloodshed will drag on without negotiations”. On Sunday, De Mistura held informal talks with the main opposition delegation, saying afterwards that he remained “optimistic and determined”.

This forced United Nations mediator Staffan de Mistura – who invited the government and opposition umbrella group for “proximity talks”, in which he would meet each side in separate rooms – to set the ball rolling with only the Damascus delegation.

Scheduled to last for several months, the negotiations aim to agree on a nationwide ceasefire except for offensives targeting Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and forming a transitional government that includes the opposition by mid-2016.