Militants shell Damascus & suburbs, 1 killed and 14 injured - SANA
One woman was killed and 17 people were injured after terrorists shelled the Syrian capital, Damascus, and its suburbs, as well as areas in southern and southwestern Syria, the country’s SANA news agency reports.
Four people have suffered injuries in Damascus’ al-Mazzeh neighborhood, southwest of the city center, after terrorists showered the area with rockets.
One woman fell victim to the shelling, SANA cited a police source as saying.
Another 10 people were injured after militants hit the northeastern Harasta neighborhood with rockets.
One person suffered injuries as the militants, holing up in Daraa al-Balad, shelled the residential al-Matar neighborhood in the southwestern city of Daraa.
Al-Nusra Front terrorists in the southern town of Beit Jinn have been identified as those responsible for the attack on the village of Hadar to the southwest of Damascus, SANA reports.
The militants reportedly bombarded the area with at least 10 mortars. One person has been wounded as a result of the shelling.
In another attack, the terrorists targeted the villages of al-Qabu and al-Sheniya, in the northwestern suburbs of the provincial capital Homs, with rockets. A girl has been reportedly injured in the assault.
The new wave of deadly attacks comes just a day after at least 50 people were killed and dozens injured in a string of suicide blasts targeting the city of Homs. A total of six suicide bombings rocked military facilities in the city, including the headquarters of the Syrian security service and the building housing Syrian military intelligence. The attacks were claimed by Al-Nusra Front militants.
In the aftermath of the attacks, the Syrian authorities strongly urged the UN and all opposition groups party to the Geneva peace talks to condemn the explosions unless they want to be deemed terrorist accomplices.
The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the main Syrian opposition group, subsequently issued a statement, saying that it “condemns all terrorist acts carried out by all terrorist groups,” and was ready to do the same in respect of the Homs attacks if they were perpetrated by a terrorist group or groups.
Mohamad Ali, a journalist reporting from Damascus, told RT that it is a usual tactic by terrorists to specifically strike residential areas with an aim to incur as many civilian casualties as possible.
READ MORE: 50 killed in suicide bombings targeting Syrian military HQs in Homs – state media
“Since the start of the crisis in Syria, the civilians have been suffering the most because with most attacks, whether with mortar shells like the ones today, or car bombs, terrorists usually target residential areas and the civilians suffer the most,” Ali told RT, pointing out that the majority of those injured in today’s shelling of Damascus were women and children.
Ali believes that the timing of the attack could be linked to a large-scale military operation by the Syrian army in the northeastern Al-Qabun neighborhood of Damascus, which has been besieged by government forces.
Commenting on the separate attack on al-Zara power station in the southern suburbs of Hama province, which was also shelled with rockets Sunday, the journalist noted that by destroying critical infrastructure the terrorists hope to stir up popular unrest.
“The terrorists usually do so to undermine, perhaps, the Syrian government’s trust among people in areas they control,” Ali said, adding that such tactics have been employed not only by hardliners but also “moderate” factions of the opposition.
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“Definitely, they are doing their best, those militant groups across the country, whether we speak about the Al-Qaeda-linked ones or the ones that are so-called moderate opposition groups,” he said.
However, the strategy of harming their own people can’t bring any fruit as “those suffering the most in the end of the day are civilians, because when the electricity is cut the civilians are suffering, it is not the government,” he said.
