A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, July 3, 2017
Three car bombs target Damascus, 20 killed
Children
look at the wreckage of vehicles at a blast site in the Baytara traffic
circle near the Old City of Damascus, Syria July 2, 2017.---A
man operates a front loader to clean a blast site in the Baytara
traffic circle near the Old City of Damascus, Syria July 2, 2017.
A
man operates a front loader to clean a blast site in the Baytara
traffic circle near the Old City of Damascus, Syria July 2, 2017.
BEIRUT/DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A car bomb killed 20 people in Damascus on
Sunday and wounded dozens more, the Syrian foreign ministry said, the
first such bombing in the Syrian capital since a series of jihadist
suicide attacks in March.
The authorities said it was one of three car bombs that were meant to be
blown up in crowded areas of the capital on Sunday, the first day back
to work from the Eid al-Fitr holiday. Security forces pursued and
destroyed the other two.
Officials said the bombers had been prevented from reaching their
intended targets, otherwise the casualty toll would have been higher.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Damascus
was hit by two separate, multiple suicide bomb attacks in March, one of
them claimed by Islamic State and the other by the Islamist insurgent
alliance Tahrir al-Sham.
In a letter to the U.N. secretary general and the head of the security
council, the foreign ministry said the blast that killed 20 people in
the Bab Touma area near the Old City had also wounded dozens of women
and children.
State media said the bomber had been spotted and pursued by the security
forces and set off the bomb after he had been encircled in the area.
Omar Sanadiki
Damascus has enjoyed relative security in recent years even as the six-year-long civil war has raged on in nearby areas.
Footage broadcast by state TV from the blast that caused the fatalities
near the Old City showed roads scattered with debris, several badly
damaged cars, and another one that had been turned into a pile of
twisted metal.
Footage from another of the blast sites showed what appeared to be the
remains of a person and badly damaged vehicles outside a mosque in the
Baytara traffic circle near the Old City.
On March 15, two suicide bomb attacks in Damascus killed several dozen
people, most of them at the Palace of Justice courthouse near the Old
City. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.
On March 11, a double suicide attack in the capital killed scores of
people, most of them Iraqi Shi'ite pilgrims. That attack was claimed by
the Tahrir al-Sham alliance of Islamist insurgents, which is spearheaded
by a jihadist group formerly known as the Nusra Front.
Syrian government forces, which have defeated rebel fighters in several
suburbs of Damascus over the last year, are currently battling
insurgents in the Jobar and Ain Tarma areas on the capital's eastern
outskirts.
Reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Firas Makdesi and Kinda Makieh in
Damascus; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Potter and David Evans