UN efforts to launch a new round of Syria peace talks sputtered Saturday as suicide attacks killed dozens of people, with the death toll from two days of violence nearing 100. The blasts targeting two security service bases in Homs, Syria's third city, killed a top intelligence chief and close confidant of President Bashar al-Assad, and were claimed by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in all 42 people were killed, but the provincial governor put the figure at 30 dead. The attack came a day after 77 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group in Al-Bab, said the Observatory. The jihadists were ousted from the northern town this week by Turkish-backed rebels. In Geneva, Syrian government and opposition negotiators were to continue meetings with United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura through the weekend although there was little hope for a breakthrough. After meeting de Mistura on Friday, regime delegation chief Bashar al-Jaafari said he would study a UN paper on the "format" of the talks, but gave no indication that the negotiations had any momentum. The main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) described its meeting with de Mistura as "positive", without elaborating on a possible path forward. During three previous rounds of talks in Geneva last year, the rivals never sat down at the same table, instead leaving de Mistura to shuttle between them. The HNC has said it wants to meet the government face-to-face this time. At the end of Friday's negotiations, de Mistura's acting chief of staff Michael Contet signalled there was no immediate prospect of direct talks.