Beirut/Aleppo: Syria was gripped by post-ceasefire violence on Wednesday as a bomb near the country’s most important Shiite shrine resurrected the spectre of sectarian strife and new street battles sent mortar fire across Aleppo.
The explosives that detonated near the Sayyida Zainab mosque south of Damascus were reportedly packed in a motorcycle. The mosque, a popular pilgrimage site, has been at the heart of recruitment campaigns for Iraqi Shiite to go to Syria to support the regime and defend their co-religionists from the largely Sunni rebels, according to recent reports. The London-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said that at least six people were killed, including two children. The mosque, rebuilt in 1990 by Iran, the Syrian regime’s ally, rests on the supposed burial place of Zainab, the Prophet’s daughter and wife of the Caliph Ali, who is highly revered by the Shiite. The “Abu Al-Baraa Bin Malek” rebels — a group named after a specialised cell of suicide bombers within Al Qaida after the 2003 Iraq war — later posted a message online claiming responsibility for the attack.
The explosive device targeted a government checkpoint close to the shrine, the message said. The message is particularly alarming as a bombing of an Iraqi Shiite shrine by Sunni militants led to the worst of the sectarian fighting of Iraq’s civil war. The observatory now says that 165 people are dying every day in Syria, with more than 36,000 killed since the fighting began in March last year.
Among the dead yesterday were 36 in Aleppo, local activists said. At least seven rebels died when they attacked east of the city centre through the front line at Karem Jabal early in the morning. It appeared that they fell into a trap, entering abandoned buildings and triggering a series of bombs.
By lunchtime the whole neighbourhood was under mortar and sniper fire, plumes of smoke rising from roofs 100 yards from where traders sold vegetables from a street market. West of Aleppo, activists said 13 civilians died when a plane bombed a bakery in the village of Al Atarib. Diplomatic efforts to calm the situation on the ground remain in stalemate. In a candid statement that highlighted the failure of diplomat talks intended to bring France and Russia on to the same page, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said: “If the position of our partners remains the departure of this leader who they do not like, the bloodbath will continue.”
— Telegraph Group Limited, London 2012
