Escalated terrorism in Syria and Iraq puts at stake credibility

Foreign and Expatriates Ministry addressed two identical letters to the UN Secretary General and Chairman of the UN Security Council about the horrific terrorist attacks which recently targeted areas in Hama and Homs, claiming scores of civilian lives.
A truck bomb blast rocked al-Hurra village in Hama last Friday, while a car bomb explosion hit al-Nuzheh neighborhood in the city of Homs a day before.
The truck, which was packed with three tons of explosives, claimed the lives of 35 civilians, including women and children, and injured more than 50 others, in addition to causing severe damage to a large number of houses and buildings.
A day before, six civilians were killed and 40 others were injured as Homs terrorist bombing hit a popular market on a busy intersection, damaging a number of shops and cars.
The two bombings, the Ministry said, are part of “a series of terrorist acts that randomly target innocent civilians in all the Syrian provinces,” whether in terms of explosions or shelling mortar rounds.
It added that the “gangs of criminality” committing those terrorist acts are heavily backed by countries inside and outside the region logistically and financially, in addition to the political and media cover at the international forums.
While stating that “Syria has unequivocally condemned all terrorist acts indiscriminately,” the Ministry renewed in its letters Syria’s support for counterterrorism efforts in “brotherly” Iraq.
It slammed the extremist wahhabi fatwas which call for feeding hatred in the Arab societies and attempt to “picture terrorism in some countries as purported popular revolutions.”
The Ministry called upon the countries supporting terrorism in Syria and the region to take lessons from facts and previous experiences and realize “that the threat emerging from the escalation of the epidemic of terrorism would go beyond the region’s countries to the entire world.”
The most vulnerable to this threat, it warned, would be those countries sponsoring and backing terrorism.
The Ministry stressed that the increasing danger of terrorism in Syria and its escalation recently in Iraq demand concerted international efforts to counter the risk of terrorism without discrimination or double standards, in as much as they put at stake the credibility of the international efforts on counterterrorism and implementing the UN resolutions.
“The international community is required today more than any time before to show seriousness in addressing a firm message to the terrorists and the countries backing them that terrorist acts are unjustifiable under any circumstances of reasons,” the Ministry said in its letters.
It renewed warning of the “dire” consequences of terrorism on its backers, stressing that the double standards of some Security Council state members on condemnation of terrorist acts are no longer acceptable.