Daesh claims deadly suicide attack in Syrian capital

Syrian army soldiers stand in a damaged building at a site where suicide bombers attacked a police station in Damascus, Syria October 2, 2017. (REUTERS)

BEIRUT: Daesh on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings in the Syrian capital that killed 17 civilians and policemen the previous day.
In Monday’s bombings, two men attacked a police station in the Al-Midan neighborhood with several bombs, before one of them blew himself up, according to Syria’s Interior Minister Lt. Gen. Mohammad Al-Shaar. He said the other bomber made it inside the compound, where police killed him, causing his bomb to explode.
The blasts damaged the lower floors of the building, and shattered the windows along one side. Blood stained the floors.
Daesh’s Aamaq news agency said the militant group carried out the Al-Midan attack. The statement carried by the agency gave no other details.
The Syrian Army, backed by Russia, is at war with Daesh as well as a local Al-Qaeda affiliate and an array of rebel groups trying to oust President Bashar Assad. The military has been steadily claiming territory from Daesh in central and eastern Syria recently.
Also on Tuesday, Russia’s military said its airstrikes in eastern Syria this week killed more than 300 Daesh militants.
Russia has been a major backer of Syria’s President Bashar Assad whose government troops have been advancing in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor against Daesh under the cover of Russian airstrikes.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are also marching against the Daesh group, backed by the US-led coalition.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement early on Tuesday that its airstrikes just outside Deir Ezzor, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, killed more than 304 Daesh fighters and left more than 200 wounded.
The ministry said the airstrikes also hit and destroyed a Daesh training center, as well artillery positions, tanks and ammunition depots belonging to the militants.
Assad winning Syria war, says Israel
Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday Assad was winning Syria’s civil war and urged the US to weigh in as Damascus’s Iranian and Hezbollah allies gain ground.
Avigdor Lieberman’s comments marked a reversal for Israel, where top officials had from the outset of fighting in 2011 until mid-2015 regularly predicted Assad would lose control of his country and be toppled.
“I see a long international queue lining up to woo Assad, include Western nations, including moderate Sunnis. Suddenly everyone wants to get close to Assad,” Lieberman told Israel’s Walla news site in an interview.
In late 2015, Russia helped Assad turn the tide with a military intervention that put Moscow’s forces in the field alongside Israel’s most potent foes — Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah — opposite Syrian rebels.
The US has focused its Syria operations on fighting rebel militants like Daesh — dismaying Israel, which has tried to persuade both Washington and Moscow that Iran’s expanding clout is the greater threat.
In its decades under Assad family rule, Syria has been an enemy of Israel, with their armies clashing in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. While largely keeping out of the Syrian civil war, Israel has tried to sway the world powers involved in the conflict and cautioned it could strike militarily to prevent Iran and Hezbollah entrenching further on its northern front.
“We hope the United States will be more active in the Syrian arena and the Middle East in general,” Lieberman said. “We are faced with Russians, Iranians, and also the Turks and Hezbollah, and this is no simple matter to deal with, on a daily basis.”
Lieberman did not elaborate on what actions he sought from the Donald Trump administration, which Israel has been lobbying for reassurances that Iranian and Hezbollah forces will not be allowed to deploy near its border or set up bases within Syria.
“The United States has quite a few challenges of its own, but as a trend — the more the United States will be active, the better it will be for the State of Israel,” Lieberman said.