Not to worry. John Kerry is on the case. And once he has secured peace in our time, he should travel to Raqqa to explain to the Islamic State’s caliph how he is misunderstanding Islam.
“As Kerry, Lavrov grope to secure Syria truce, Islamic State blasts claim at least 127,” Japan Times, February 22, 2016:
SAYYIDA ZEINAB, SYRIA – A string of suicide bombings near a Shiite shrine outside Syria’s capital and in Homs claimed by jihadis killed at least 127 people Sunday, as Washington and Moscow worked to secure a cease-fire.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a provisional deal had been reached on the terms of a truce in Syria’s brutal five-year conflict, only for the bloodshed to intensify on the ground.
Near Damascus, the attacks, including a car bombing, ripped through the area of the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab and killed 68 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
And two car bombs killed at least 59 people and wounded dozens in the pro-regime district of Al-Zahraa in the central city of Homs, said the Britain-based monitoring group.
The Islamic State jihadi group said it was behind the day’s carnage.
State television footage from Homs showed emergency workers carrying a charred body on a stretcher past devastated shops and mangled cars and minibuses.
Al-Zahraa — whose residents are mostly from the same Alawite sect of Shia Islam as Syria’s ruling clan — has been regularly targeted.
Islamic State said in an online statement that two jihadis drove explosive-laden cars into crowds of local residents.
Two more of its suicide bombers carried out the Sayyida Zeinab bombings, the Sunni extremist group said.
State television said a car bombing and two suicide attacks hit the area, killing 30 and wounding dozens in a preliminary toll, whereas the Observatory gave a death toll of 68 in four attacks.
An AFP reporter said the blasts struck about 400 meters from the shrine that contains the grave of a granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and is revered by Shiites.
At least 60 shops were damaged and cars reduced to mangled metal in the area, where a January attack also claimed by Islamic State killed 70 people….