Death toll up to 70 from Islamic State Damascus attack – monitor

“Terrorists” detonated a vehicle bomb at a bus terminal, followed shortly by two suicide bombings that targeted onlookers and medics at the scene of the initial attack, an Interior Ministry official told SANA.

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

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

In February 2015, the mosque had been the target of a suicide attack that left four dead and 13 wounded. The talks – which involve the Syrian government and some opposition groups meeting with the United Nations, but not directly with each other – had a rocky start, with opposition groups initially refusing to attend and many involved in the conflict feeling alienated by the U.N.’s announcement of the talk’s beginning. It has continued to attract pilgrims from Syria and beyond, particularly Shiites from Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq, throughout the almost five-year war.

The area around the shrine is heavily secured with regime checkpoints set up hundreds of metres (yards) away to prevent vehicles from approaching. The fighting has displaced about half of the country’s population.

Hezbollah fighters sent to Syria to support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after the uprising began in March 2011 with anti-government protests. The bombings were carried out to interfere with the talks in Geneva, the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last month tasked Jordan with compiling an agreed list of terrorist organizations that would be excluded from the talks.

On Sunday, de Mistura paid an informal visit to the HNC delegation, saying he is “optimistic and determined” about the talks.

“This confirms what the Syrian government has said over and over again – that there is a link between terrorism and those who sponsor terrorism from one side and some political groups that pretend to be against terrorism”, he said.