At least 30 killed in Damascus explosions

A total of 50 people were killed and more than 105 others were injured in the attacks.

It said two suicide bombers then detonated their explosive belts when people gathered at the scene.

Syrian state news agency SANA, quoting an interior ministry source, said a group of militants had detonated a auto bomb near a public transport garage in the neighbourhood’s Koua Sudan area.

“The aim of this cowardly and desperate terrorist attack is to raise the morale of the defeated terrorist groups following the great victories that our courageous army has accomplished in several areas”, the state-run SANA news agency reported that Halqi said.

NPR’s Alison Meuse, reporting from Beirut for our Newscast unit, says the Islamic State has claimed responsibility through its media outlets.

“The area targeted, Sayyida Zeinab, is home to one of the holiest shrines in Islam, but which is especially revered by Shiite Muslims”. The European Union said the deadly attack was an attempt by IS (Daesh) to derail peace talks between the Syrian regime and opposition groups in Geneva.

In February 2015, the mosque had been the target of a suicide attack that left four dead and 13 wounded.

Sunni Muslim extremist groups such as IS consider Shiah to be heretics and have frequently targeted them in attacks.

The area around Sayyida Zeinab is heavily secured, with government checkpoints set up hundreds of metres away to prevent vehicles from going close.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, members of Lebanon’s powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah are among those deployed at the checkpoints.

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 Syria’s conflict, which has also displaced upwards of half the country’s population internally and overseas. The negotiations will start with proximity talks, with United Nations diplomats travelling back and forth between the rival delegations in separate rooms, and are expected to last for six months.