Equipo Nizkor - UNSC S/2016/168 - Letter from Syria on two terrorist attacks committed in Homs.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2016/168

Distr.: General
22 February 2016
English
Original: Arabic

Identical letters dated 21 February 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

On instructions from my Government, I wish to transmit information concerning two recent terrorist bombings which, once again, targeted the residential neighbourhood of Zahra' in the city of Homs.

On the morning of Sunday, 21 February 2016, an armed terrorist group detonated two car bombs in succession in the Zahra' neighbourhood of Homs city. According to a preliminary victim count, more than 46 people were killed and more than 110 were injured, most of them seriously. Property and infrastructure at the site were extensively damaged. As we informed you in previous letters, similar attacks on the neighbourhood have claimed the lives of hundreds of women, children and old persons. Despite the scale of the attacks and their human and material cost, the Security Council has remained silent, failing to show any interest or express its condemnation. It has, however, responded to other incidents that were just as alarming and horrific, or indeed less so.

The bombings are part of a series of systematic acts of terrorism perpetrated by armed terrorist groups, which everyone now realizes are the true proxies of the Saudi and Turkish regimes on Syrian soil. Through the bombings, those regimes have responded to revelations regarding their role in sparking and fuelling the Syrian crisis. More specifically, they are attempting to hamper diplomatic efforts at reaching a political solution to the crisis.

The Syrian Government stresses that such terrorist crimes and atrocities will not deter it from fighting terrorism and working towards a political solution to the crisis, among Syrians and under Syrian leadership, leading to the elimination of terrorism and the restoration of security and stability for the Syrian people.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic calls on the Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations to condemn these terrorist crimes immediately and forcefully. It also calls on the Security Council to fulfil its responsibility to maintain international peace and security by taking immediate preventive and punitive measures in respect of States that support and fund terrorism, particularly Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. It should prevent those States' regimes from backing terrorism and endangering international peace and security, and prevail on them to fully enforce Security Council resolutions 2170 (2014), 2178 (2014), 2199 (2015) and 2253 (2015).

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter issued as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Bashar Ja'afari
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

Information
Bookshop \| Donate Derechos \| Equipo Nizkor

22Feb16

Letter from Syria on two terrorist attacks committed in Homs