Policemen inspect the site where two terrorist suicide bombers detonated two car bombs in an area of Umayyad Square in Damascus yesterday.
DAMASCUS: Gunman abducted seven International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent staff yesterday in Idlib province, one of the main theatres of Syria’s brutal war, the ICRC said.
It came as two suicide car bombings blasted Damascus, and as ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) evacuated thousands of people from a suburb of the capital the army has besieged for months.
A key opposition group, meanwhile, said it would not attend any Geneva peace talks, a setback for a US-Russian proposal aiming at ending the 31-month conflict that has killed more than 115,000 people.
Six Red Cross staff and a SARC volunteer were “abducted this morning by unidentified armed men near Sareqeb,” ICRC said.
“We call for the immediate and unconditional release of the seven colleagues,” said Magne Barth, head of ICRC’s Syria delegation.
ICRC did not give the nationality of those abducted, and there has been no claim of responsibility.
The Red Cross working on both sides of the conflict, said the team had travelled to Idlib on October 10 to assess the situation at health facilities and deliver aid.
“The convoy, which was on its way back to Damascus, was marked with the ICRC emblem, which is not a religious symbol.”
Rebels control large swathes of the northwestern province of Idlib bordering Turkey.
Meanwhile, two cars laden with explosives and driven by suicide bombers blew up near the state broadcaster’s headquarters at night in central Damascus, state media said.
A reporter for government television made no mention of any casualties, saying only “there were some human remains at the scene, likely those of a suicide bomber”.
On the political front, the Syrian National Council ruled out attending any Geneva peace talks, and said it would quit the umbrella opposition National Coalition if it participated.
“The Syrian National Council... has taken the firm decision... not to go to Geneva under the present circumstances (on the ground),” its chief George Sabra said. “This means that we will not stay in the Coalition if it goes” to the talks.
US Secretary of State John Kerry flew to London yesterday to discuss the Geneva conference with Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria.
Sabra said the international community had failed to punish the regime for an August 21 sarin gas attack on Damascus’ outskirts that killed hundreds of people.
The US threatened military strikes in response to the attacks, which Washington and Syria’s opposition blamed on the regime.
The strikes were averted by a US-Russian deal under which Syria is turning over its chemical arsenal for destruction.
“The international community has focused on the murder weapon, which is the chemical weapons, and left the murderer unpunished and forgotten the victims,” said Sabra. “We will not participate in a conference that is intended to hide the failure of international politics.”
He invoked the plight of Syrians in neighbourhoods besieged by regime troops, including the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyet Al Sham, where he said residents were “dying of hunger”.
ICRC and SARC said they had evacuated 3,500 people from the neighbourhood within a day. Most were women and children “in a state of major fatigue and were very scared,” SARC head of operations Khaled Erksoussi said.
Regime forces regularly bomb Moadamiyet Al Sham, and the opposition accuses the government of starving residents by sealing off the district, which was targeted in the August 21 sarin attack.
The government says the opposition is holding residents hostage and described the evacuation as part of its “efforts to protect citizens from terrorists”.
Agencies
