Comment by the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the terrorist attacks in Iraq and Syria

On the 20 October in Iraq, in the south-west of Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Amal, a region mostly populated by Shiites. 37 people died and 42 were injured as a result. A little bit earlier several administrative buildings and a police station in a Sunni town, Rawa, in Anbar Province, experienced a series of terrorist attacks by suicide bombers.

On the same day in Syria, a suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives committed a terrorist attack near a government checkpoint on the road between Hama and the Ishmaelitesacred town of Salamya. At least 31 people, mainly civilians, including women and children, were victims. Dozens of people were injured. Another suicide bomber attacked a roadblock in the suburbs of Jaramana, a Christian-Druze suburb of Damascus. Military persons and civilians died.

We again express our serious concern about the growth of terrorist activities in the Middle East region. It should be stated that the pattern in crime in both countries is the same: suicide bombers, murders of innocent civilians. Special attention should be drawn to the fact that sectarian motives, the wish to force a wedge between different ethnic and religious communities,as in Iraq and Syria, are seen in the actions of terrorist groups.

We are supportive of the decisive rejection of terrorists by the authorities of these two countries. The use of terrorist methods (no matter what their purpose) and even more, attempts to create interreligious and interethnic hostility by them are inadmissible and, in our opinion, require universal and unconditional condemnation.

21 October 2013