More than 160 people were killed and some 200 wounded when four blasts hit Sayeda Zeinab in the southern Damascus area on Sunday. Islamic State (ISIS) claimed both attacks, according to the Amaq news agency, which supports the militant Sunni group. Initial reports say two of the blasts were car bombs and the other two were detonated by suicide bombers.
The Damascus area bombings followed after a deadly twin attack that hit the city of Homs, killing about 60 people and wounding at least 100.
Coincidentally or not, the blasts went off at about the same time US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, announced that they had reached a “provisional agreement” on terms of a cessation of hostilities in Syria, and for the second time in a week said the sides were closer to a ceasefire than ever before.
Reporting on the tragedies was sparse because almost no foreign journalists remain in Syria following a spate of kidnappings and beheadings of members of the international media. Reports rely on the work of citizen-journalists on-site and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that has an extensive network of local rapporteurs.