Syrian intelligence says it thwarted ISIL attempt to blow up Shia shrine

The Sayyida Zeinab shrine successful Damascus has antecedently been targeted by ISIL and different equipped groups successful Syria.

Syrian authorities person foiled an effort by ISIL (ISIS) fighters to stroke up a revered Shia shrine successful a Damascus suburb, authorities quality bureau SANA has reported.

Intelligence and information forces “succeeded successful thwarting an effort by ISIL to transportation retired a bombing wrong the Sayyida Zeinab shrine”, a root wrong Syria’s quality bureau told SANA connected Saturday, adding that respective radical person been arrested.

“The General Intelligence Directorate is utilising each its resources to face each attempts to people the Syrian radical successful each their diversity,” the quality authoritative told SANA.

The interior ministry posted pictures of 4 men it said were members of an ISIL compartment who had been arrested successful the countryside extracurricular the capital.

It besides published images of instrumentality allegedly seized from the suspects, including smartphones, 2 rifles, 3 explosive devices and respective manus grenades.

The photos showed the individuality papers of 2 Lebanese and a Palestinian exile surviving successful Lebanon.

“The shrine they were trying to people is connected the confederate outskirts of Damascus,” Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed said, reporting from Damascus.

“It’s an important spiritual tract for Shia Muslims. They judge the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad is buried [there].”

Mohamed noted that it is not the archetypal clip this shrine has been targeted.

“In 2008, determination was a car weaponry … [in which] 17 radical were killed,” helium said.

ISIL besides antecedently targeted the Damascus shrine, Syria’s astir visited Shia pilgrimage site, claiming work for a treble termination onslaught successful February 2016 adjacent to the mausoleum that killed 134 people.

The radical had besides claimed a triple blast adjacent the sanctuary respective weeks earlier that took the lives of astatine slightest 70 people.

A July 2023 bombing killed astatine slightest six radical adjacent the mausoleum.

Shia shrines person been a predominant people of attacks by Sunni groups specified arsenic ISIL, some successful Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Iran-backed guards utilized to beryllium deployed astatine the gates of the Sayyida Zeinab mausoleum, but they fled past month, soon earlier Sunni-led rebels swept into the Syrian superior and toppled President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran-backed fighters had been cardinal supporters of al-Assad since the warfare broke retired successful 2011.