Equipo Nizkor - UNSC S/2016/656 - Letter from Syria regarding the terrorist attacks committed in Qamishli and in Damascus between 24 and 27Jul16.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2016/656

Distr.: General
4 August 2016
English
Original: Arabic

Identical letters dated 27 July 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 should like to inform you of terrorist attacks carried out by armed terrorist groups against peaceful residential neighbourhoods in the city of Qamishli, in Hasakah governorate, and in Damascus.

On the morning of Wednesday, 27 July 2016, the terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attacked the city of Qamishli. A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb, targeting the western neighbourhood of the city. According to a preliminary count, 48 civilians were killed and 140 received injuries of varying degrees of severity, the majority of them children, women and old persons. Significant damage was also caused to homes and infrastructure of the neighbourhood.

On Sunday and Monday, 24 and 25 July 2016, the so-called "moderate opposition groups" also targeted peaceful neighbourhoods of Damascus, launching indiscriminate attacks with missiles, rockets and mortars against the neighbourhoods of Abu Rummanah, Bab Tuma and Qaymariyah. A car bomb was also detonated in the residential neighbourhood of Kafr Susah. These terrorist attacks resulted in the deaths of nine civilians, including a mother who was celebrating her daughter's birthday together with her family at a restaurant in the Bab Tuma neighbourhood of the old city of Damascus.

On 24 July 2016, these so-called moderate terrorists also targeted several residential neighbourhoods of the city of Aleppo, firing missiles, hell cannons and mortar shells and killing a woman and her child in the Khalidiyah neighbourhood. These bloody terrorist acts resulted in the injury of dozens of civilians, mostly children, women and the elderly, and caused extensive destruction to homes, schools, hospitals and infrastructure in these peaceful residential neighbourhoods.

These terrorist attacks, and other such acts, constitute a continuation of the systematic terrorist acts committed against the Syrian people by armed terrorist groups supported and funded by foreign States. These groups are now well known to all, and include the terrorist Nusrah Front, the Army of Islam, Ahrar al-Sham, the Army of Conquest, the Nur al-Din al-Zanki brigade and the organization ISIL. Their acts of terrorism represent systematic and continued violations of the cessation of hostilities agreement, in a new and shameless attempt by the regimes in Riyadh, Doha, Ankara, Paris and Tel Aviv that support and sponsor terrorism to undermine efforts aimed at preventing the loss of Syrian lives and to thwart the de-escalation arrangements, and, in anticipation of a new round of Geneva talks, to ensure that the talks fail. It is shameful that certain members of the Security Council are continuing to prevent the Council from taking immediate deterrent and punitive measures against the States and regimes that support and finance terrorism — in particular, the regimes in Riyadh, Ankara, Doha, Paris and London. Such action only serves to give those regimes the green light to order their terrorist proxies in Syria to continue committing terrorist acts and massacres against the Syrian people, thereby destabilizing peace and security in Syria, the region and the world.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, in this context, cautions against the desperate attempts by regimes that sponsor, support and fund terrorism, which are endeavouring to cosmeticize the terrorist organization Nusrah Front. The organization aims to circumvent the Security Council resolutions on combating terrorism by shedding its skin and changing its name, and by issuing declarations on the ostensible severing of ties between the Nusrah Front and the terrorist Al-Qaida organization. It intends thereby to protect itself from international prosecution and follow-up under the relevant Security Council resolutions on combating and suppressing terrorism. This will also give it the necessary political cover for it to continue in the task assigned to it by its sponsors of slaughtering the Syrian people and undermining security and stability in Syria and the region, in fulfilment of dubious foreign agendas. The Syrian Government stresses that it will not be fooled by failed attempts such as these, nor will they fool any of the States that are sincere in their efforts to combat terrorism and to eradicate this scourge.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic emphasizes that these terrorist massacres and crimes will not deter it from continuing to perform its duty to fight against terrorism and to strive for a political solution to the Syrian crisis through an intra-Syrian dialogue under Syrian leadership, leading to the eradication of terrorism, the rebuilding of all that has been destroyed by the terrorists and their partners, financial backers and supporters, and the restoration of security and stability for the Syrian people.

The Government urges the members of the Security Council who objected to the inclusion of the Army of Islam and Ahrar al-Sham on the Security Council list of terrorist individuals, entities, groups and institutions, to reconsider their position on this, and instead to take the initiative of including other terrorist organizations, such as the Nur al-Din al-Zanki organization, the Army of Conquest, the Army of Islam, on the Security Council lists of terrorist groups and entities. In this way they will demonstrate their determination to fight international terrorism, which has become a threat to the security and stability of the peoples of the entire world. The Syrian Government has given warning of this and will continue to do so. The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic calls on the Security Council 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 preventive and punitive measures immediately in respect of those regimes and States that support and fund terrorism, in particular the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. The Council must prevent those States from continuing to fund terrorism and to undermine international peace and security, and must compel them to implement fully the relevant Security Council resolutions, including 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

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04Aug16

Letter from Syria regarding the terrorist attacks committed in Qamishli and in Damascus between 24 and 27Jul16