Konflikten i Syrien

A series of blasts have hit near a Shia shrine in Syria's capital Damascus, according to state TV, just hours after a twin bombing in the central city of Homs killed dozens of people.

State television on Sunday said "three terrorist attacks" near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, located in a southern suburb of Damascus, had left at least 83 people dead, including several schoolchildren.

The blasts in Damascus came just hours after dozens of civilians were killed in Homs, despite announcements suggesting that a temporary ceasefire in Syria is closer than ever.

SANA said the car-bomb attacks happened near the entrance to the city's al-Arman neighbourhood, with officials saying that at least 62 people were killed and 110 more were wounded.

Homs is largely under government control and has regularly been targeted in bomb attacks.

America Is Now Fighting A Proxy War With Itself In Syria
Confusion in the Obama administration’s Syria policy is playing out on the ground as U.S.-backed groups begin battling each other.
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Furqa al-Sultan Murad receives weapons from the U.S. and its allies as part of a covert program, overseen by the CIA, that aids rebel groups struggling to overthrow the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to rebel officials and analysts tracking the conflict.
The Kurdish militants, on the other hand, receive weapons and support from the Pentagon as part of U.S. efforts to fight ISIS. Known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, they are the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s strategy against the extremists in Syria and coordinate regularly with U.S. airstrikes.
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Officials with three other groups — the Northern Division, Jaysh al-Mujahideen and a coalition called Jabhat al-Shamiya — that have received support from the operations room also said they were now battling the YPG in northern Syria. “There are many groups supported by [the operations room] that are fighting the YPG right now,” said the Northern Division’s Col. Ahmed Hamada, who added that some of his fighters had received U.S. training in the past.

The recent clashes could make it difficult for the U.S. to build the crucial Arab component of its ISIS fight, the Washington Institute’s Tabler said. “If this continues, the U.S. is only going to have one option it can work with, which is the YPG. It’s not going to have the Arab option,” he said. “Which would be fine if the Kurds were the majority of the Syrian population, but they’re not. We need Sunni Arabs to defeat ISIS.”