Three blasts kill at least 45 near Syria Shia shrine

Official news agency SANA said the first blast was caused by a auto bomb that detonated at a bus station near the shrine.

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrians gather where three bombs exploded in Sayyda Zeinab, a predominantly Shiite Muslim suburb of the Syrian capital, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016.

That optimistic note, however, was overshadowed by the deadly blasts in the Syrian capital, which Kerry mentioned near the end of his speech.

Islamic State, an ultra-fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group that has overrun territory in Syria and Iraq, views Shiites as apostates and has engaged in numerous mass killings of Shiites and other Muslims whom they denounce as infidels.

It continues to draw many Shia pilgrims and is protected by members of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group.

State television showed footage of burning buildings and wrecked cars in the neighbourhood.

The bombing coincided with opening statements by the non-Isil Syrian rebel opposition on the arrival of a delegation to planned peace talks in Geneva. “Unfortunately, this is the beginning of Geneva 3 talks that Syrian government and Syrian people count on”, he said. “With the opposition’s delegation not showing up, it shows that they are not serious and irresponsible at a time when Syrians are being killed”.

The civil war in Syria has dragged on for almost five years, killed a quarter of a million people and displaced millions more. They pretend to fight terrorism.

NPR’s Alison Meuse, reporting from Beirut for our Newscast unit, says the Islamic State has claimed responsibility through its media outlets. The opposition delegation, which is scheduled to meet with him on Sunday, said it won’t take part in the talks until its demands are met, the AP reported. “Shiite militant groups allied with Bashar al-Assad’s forces often use the defense of the shrine as a rallying cry for recruits”.

Also missing is Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist group backed by Turkey and Qatar that has been fighting alongside Jabhat al-Nusra, and which the regime says it can not accept as a negotiating partner.

The talks are to be held in an 18-month timetable under a resolution unanimously approved by the UN Security Council on Syria last December. Work on the list is still underway.