An umbrella group of Syrian Islamist rebels has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Damascus Saturday that killed more than 70 people.

The twin blasts hit buses of Iraqi pilgrims at the Bab al-Saghir cemetery in Damascus, Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Jamal said.

As of Sunday, the death toll had reached 74, UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least 20 victims were members of the Syrian regime forces and militiamen loyal to the Syrian regime, the group said.

Bab al-Saghir is a sacred cemetery in the southern section of the old city where descendants and companions of the Prophet Mohammed are buried. Shiites make pilgrimages to the site to pay respects to descendants of Ali, the prophet’s cousin, who are buried there.

The first explosion happened near the cemetery, according to the Observatory, and the second happened nearby, as visitors gathered to witness to the destruction.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former Al Qaeda affiliate previously known as Jabhat al Nusra, claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group said in a statement that it were targeting a group of “occupying Iranian militias,” referring to Iranian fighters supporting the Syrian regime, along with Syrian government soldiers.

Iran and Syria are allies. Iranian militias, together with Iranian-backed militias from Lebanon, have been fighting side by side with Syrian regime forces against the rebels.

Syria has been engulfed in a civil war for six years marked by Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict. Last year, ISIS claimed responsibility for deadly attacks near the revered “Lady Zeynab” Shiite Muslim shrine on the southern outskirts of Damascus. Iraq has has also experienced similar attacks.</s>"We strongly condemn the terror attack at the Shia pilgrim sight in Damascus. As a result this coward attack, dozens of people who were going to hold peacefully a religious ceremony were killed and injured. Such actions demonstrate inhumanity of terrorists. This tragic event also indicates the immediate need for political settlement in Syria," the statement read.

After the attack, the Syrian Interior Ministry formed a special investigation commission to probe the attack in Damascus.

The Tahrir al Sham militant group, which was organized at the initiative of the Jabhat Fatah al Sham terror group (formerly known as the Nusra Front, outlawed in Russia), is said to have claimed responsibility for the attack.</s>A Syrian jihadist group affi liated with al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a twin bombing on Friday in the capital Damascus that killed at least 40. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham said the attack was “a message to Iran” over the country’s support for Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Th e majority of dead were Iraqi pilgrims, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Th e Observatory put the death toll at 74, but the fi gure was not confi rmed. Th e blast wounded 120, according to Iraq’s government. According to the Observatory, the attack consisted of a roadside bomb detonated as a bus passed, and a suicide bombing. It took place near the Bab al-Saghir cemetery, which houses Shia mausoleums. Sunni militants often target Shias but attacks in the capital are uncommon. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Liberation of the Levant Organisation) is a new group formed from Jabhat Fateh alSham (previously al-Nusra Front) and four smaller factions. A nationwide truce in Syria, brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran, took eff ect on 30 December after talks in Kazakhstan, but sporadic attacks continue. Th ere have been two rounds of talks, with another planned next week. Damascus is mostly under the control of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but rebel groups are present in outlying districts of the city.

In January, a double suicide bombing in the Kafr Sousa district of the capital killed at least 10 people. Th e thennamed said it was behind that attack. Th e group is excluded from the peace talks and its mainly north-western bases have been regularly targeted by the Syrian army and its Russian allies. So-called Islamic State is another Sunni extremist group that controls signifi cant areas of Syria.

Its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul is currently under attack from Iraqi government forces and their allies. More than 300,000 people have been killed and 11 million others displaced since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011</s>Men and Syrian Army members inspect a damaged site after a suicide and car bomb attack in south Damascus Shi'ite suburb of Sayeda Zeinab, Syria. Arab media are reporting at least 40 people are dead after twin blasts in a Damascus neighborhood that is home to tombs of religious figures frequented by Shiite pilgrims.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Indian Express.</s>Twin blasts Saturday near holy shrines frequented by Shiites in the Syria n capital Damascus killed at least 40 people, most of them Iraqis, according to Syrian and Iraqi officials. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.

Start the conversation, or Read more at CBS News.</s>President Bashar al-Assad's forces are in control of central Damascus, but rebels have been able to launch mortar and rocket attacks into the city's centre, sometimes hitting heavily secured upmarket districts and embassy grounds.

"Two citizens were martyred and eight others wounded ... by mortars fired by terrorists at the opera house," the state news agency SANA said, without specifying when the attack occurred.

Elsewhere, at least 13 rebel fighters were killed in a vehicle explosion in the central city of Homs, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise. There were no more immediate details.

The Observatory, which monitors violence through a network of sources in Syria, said at least five people including three children had also been killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma during shelling by government forces.

In Mleiha, a suburb to the east of Damascus, government war planes carried out air strikes during heavy fighting with rebels.

Elsewhere, government helicopters dropped barrel bombs in the northern province of Aleppo, in Deraa in the south and Latakia in the west, the group said.

Assad's forces also shelled the area around Kasab, a village in the north of Latakia province that rebels seized about two weeks ago.

Late on Saturday, two fighters from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, were killed in the easterly Hasaka province during fighting around the town of Markadah with an al Qaeda splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Observatory said.

Syria's three-year-old conflict has killed more than 150,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — An al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility Sunday for twin blasts near holy shrines frequented by Shiites in the Syrian capital Damascus that killed at least 40 people as a suspected airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition killed at least 17 in northern Syria, activists said.

The Levant Liberation Committee said in a statement that the attack was carried out by two of its suicide attackers, claiming that they targeted pro-Iranian and pro-government militiamen. It identified the suicide attackers as Abu Omar and Abu Aisha.

The Syrian government maintains that the attacks killed 40 people. However the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights increased its estimated death toll on Sunday to 74. Conflicting casualty estimates are common in the aftermath of violence in Syria.

The attacks in Damascus show that Syrian militant groups can still strike deep inside the capital where security is tight, with scores of checkpoints that search cars and ask people for identity cards.

The claim of responsibility comes at a time when al-Qaida’s branch in Syria known as the Fatah al-Sham Front is trying to market itself as the only effective force against Assad and the main defender of the country’s majority Sunnis.

Fatah al-Sham is opposed to peace talks between the opposition and the government that have taken place recently in Geneva and the Kazakh capital of Astana. Fatah al-Sham as well as the Islamic State group have been excluded from a cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey that went into effect on Dec. 30.

Saturday’s attack also wounded over a hundred, most of them Iraqis, according to Syrian and Iraqi officials. The al-Qaida-linked group said the blasts were a message to Iran — a main backer of Assad.

“Iran and its militias have, from the start of the revolution, supported the tyrannical and criminal regime and have been killing and displacing our people,” the statement said. “This is a message to Iran and its militias that the right will not go wasted.”

The Levant Liberation Committee is a coalition of several militant groups dominated by Fatah al-Sham.

The attacks came two weeks after members of the same group stormed two different security offices in the central city of Homs, killing and wounding scores of people, including a top Syrian security official.

In northern Syria, opposition activists said a suspected U.S.-led coalition airstrike hit a school in the village of Kasrat just south of the city of Raqqa, killing at least 17 people. The airstrike came amid an offensive by U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters against the Islamic State group in the northern province of Raqqa that is home to the extremists’ de facto capital.

The Observatory said Sunday’s early airstrike killed 19 people, including eight who fled violence in the nearby province of Aleppo. The activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said the airstrike killed 17.

On Thursday, at least 20 civilians, including some children, were killed in suspected U.S.-coalition airstrikes on a village east of Raqqa.

Also Sunday, two Syrian opposition figures said the Syrian armed opposition will not take part in a meeting planned and sponsored by Russia and Turkey in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Tuesday, saying the government has not been abiding by a cease-fire.

Ahmad Ramadan told The Associated Press via a text message that rebels will not go because the Syrian government and Russia are working on displacing people from the neighborhood of al-Waer, the only rebel-held area in the central city of Homs.

Rebel legal adviser and spokesman Osama Abo Zayd wrote on his Twitter account that “the crimes by the regime and Iran, and the shelling and airstrikes of Russia and its sponsoring of displacement in al-Waer has totally severed the opportunities of our participation in Astana.”

The announcement came a day after Syria’s armed opposition groups called for postponing the meeting in Astana, saying that violations of a Russia-backed cease-fire have persisted.</s>Rebel alliance formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda said it was behind blasts targeting Shia pilgrims that killed dozens.

The alliance of hardline fighters in Syria known as Tahrir al-Sham has claimed responsibility for twin bombings targeting Shia pilgrims in the centre of Damscus that killed at least 40 people.

"On Saturday... a twin attack was carried out by two heroes of Islam ... in the centre of the capital Damascus, killing and wounding dozens," the statement said.

The group, a large portion of which previously fought as an al-Qaeda affiliate, said the attack targeted "Iranian militias" and pro-government fighters in revenge for what it said was Iran's role in supporting President Bashar al-Assad's "tyrannical rule", holding them responsible for "killing and displacing" Syrians.

Iran and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement of Lebanon are close allies of the Syrian government.

The death toll from the blasts remained unclear as of Sunday, however.

Syrian state television said 40 people were killed and 120 wounded by "two bombs detonated by terrorists", while Iraq's foreign ministry said 40 of its nationals had died.

 

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 76 people, including 43 Iraqi pilgrims, were killed when a roadside bomb detonated as a bus made its way through the Ban al-Saghir area of Damascus' famed Old City, and then a suicide bomber blew himself up.

 

The war monitor said 11 bystanders and eight children were killed in the blasts, as well as 20 members of pro-government security forces.

 

In January, the Tahrir al-Sham alliance also claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the high-security Kafr Sousa district of Damascus that killed 10 people, eight of them soldiers.

 

The centre of Damascus has been largely spared the violence that has rocked other major cities in Syria's six-year war.

 

But periodic bombings have targeted Shia shrines and were subsequently claimed by hardline groups, including Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).</s>An umbrella group of Syrian Islamist rebels has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Damascus Saturday that killed more than 70 people.

The twin blasts hit buses of Iraqi pilgrims at the Bab al-Saghir cemetery in Damascus, Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Jamal said.

As of Sunday, the death toll had reached 74, UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least 20 victims were members of the Syrian regime forces and militiamen loyal to the Syrian regime, the group said.

Bab al-Saghir is a sacred cemetery in the southern section of the old city where descendants and companions of the Prophet Mohammed are buried. Shiites make pilgrimages to the site to pay respects to descendants of Ali, the prophet’s cousin, who are buried there.

The first explosion happened near the cemetery, according to the Observatory, and the second happened nearby, as visitors gathered to witness to the destruction.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former Al Qaeda affiliate previously known as Jabhat al Nusra, claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group said in a statement that it were targeting a group of “occupying Iranian militias,” referring to Iranian fighters supporting the Syrian regime, along with Syrian government soldiers.

Iran and Syria are allies. Iranian militias, together with Iranian-backed militias from Lebanon, have been fighting side by side with Syrian regime forces against the rebels.

Syria has been engulfed in a civil war for six years marked by Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict. Last year, ISIS claimed responsibility for deadly attacks near the revered “Lady Zeynab” Shiite Muslim shrine on the southern outskirts of Damascus. Iraq has has also experienced similar attacks.</s>This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows blood soaked streets and several damaged buses in a parking lot at the site of an attack by twin explosions in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, March 11, 2017. Twin explosions Saturday near religious shrines frequented by Shiite pilgrims in the Syrian capital Damascus killed dozens of people, Arab media and activists report.

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Tahrir al-Sham, al-Qaeda's branch in Syria, claims responsibility for yesterday's twin bomb attacks in Damascus which left dozens dead.