Foreign Ministry: Security Council’s silence over terrorist acts encourages terrorists

Damascus – The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Monday sent two identical letters to the UN Secretary-General and the head of the Security Council on the terrorist bombings that targeted al-Sayyida Zeinab town in Damascus Countryside on Sunday.

In the letters, the Ministry said that on Sunday February 21st 2016, ISIS terrorists detonated a Toyota rigged with large amounts of highly-explosives materials in a crowded marketplace in al-Sayyida Zeinab town, and this was followed by two bombings, one using a cooking gas cylinder and another carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt as civilians gathered to help the people injured in the first bombing, SANA reported.

The Ministry said the three bombings resulted in the death of 83 civilians and injured hundreds, most of them women, children, and elderly people, some of whom are lying in hospitals in critical conditions, adding that the attacks also caused severe material damages to properties and infrastructure in the area.

The letters noted that these attacks came after a few hours of the twin terrorist bombings that targeted al-Zahra’a residential neighborhood in Homs city, claiming the lives of more than 46 civilians and injuring more than 110 people, most of whom are in critical condition.

The Ministry said that the Security Council’s continuing silence and its lack of condemnation of terrorist acts encourages terrorists and their supporters and funders to continue committing terrorist acts, and it encourages ISIS and its sponsors – particularly the Turkish and Saudi regimes – to continue committing massacres against the Syrian people, adding that this silence also encourages terrorist groups outside Syria that are carrying out attacks in other states in the region and the world.

The letters said the Syrian Arab Republic government demands that the Security Council and the UN Secretary-General condemn these terrorist crimes immediately and sternly, in addition to demanding that the Security Council take immediate deterrent and punitive measures against the states that support and fund terrorism, particularly Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The Ministry stressed that the Security Council must prevent the aforementioned states’ regimes and others from continuing to support terrorism and tampering with international peace and security, and that it must compel them to comply with relevant Security Council resolutions.

The Ministry concluded by hoping that the letters will be issued as an official Security Council document.