John 16:2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.
At least 19 people were killed and another 43 were severely injured when two coordinated explosions rocked a Syrian city on Monday, the nation’s official news agency reported.
According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, a car bomb exploded in Homs, a city in western Syria. As people gathered around site of the initial explosion, apparently to survey the blast’s damage, a suicide bomber entered the crowd and detonated another explosive device.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British organization that monitors the ongoing conflict in Syria, reported a higher death toll of 32 and said at least 90 people had been injured.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks.
The explosions come about two weeks after 16 people died and 54 more were injured in other blasts in Homs. The Islamic State said it was behind the Dec. 12 attacks, Reuters reported.
Both terrorist attacks came after the United Nations helped implement a Dec. 5 ceasefire truce that allowed 700 people to evacuate the final rebel-controlled part of the city, one of the most heavily damaged in the bloody civil war that has caused millions of people to flee their homes.
Monday’s blasts came as at least 300 families were being evacuated from three other Syrian communities under similar United Nations-backed agreements, according to SANA. Two of the cities are located in Idleb province and another is located near the Syrian capital of Damascus.
United Nations officials have publicly said the organization hopes such agreements, aimed at getting relief to particularly embattled Syrian communities, will foster a nationwide ceasefire.