Saboteurs Target a Train Traveling from Aleppo to Damascus, Driver Martyred

Jul 24, 2011

HOMS, (SANA) - A group of saboteurs on Saturday targeted a train in al-Souda area in Homs at 03:00 am while it was traveling from Aleppo to Damascus with more than 480 passengers onboard most of them are children, women and patients who were traveling to undergo surgeries. SANA Correspondent mentioned that those terrorist groups loosed parts of the railway as the train derailed and its cabin was burnt and the driver was martyred while a number of the passengers were injured. Official source: the sabotage act aimed at committing massacre against innocents An official source at the Interior Ministry announced that the sabotage act aimed at committing a massacre against 480 innocent passengers traveling from Aleppo to Damascus. "The Ministry urges all citizens to cooperate with security and police apparatus to give any information available about the saboteurs and criminals who exploit and hide behind demonstrations to carry out terrorist acts that target civilians as well as damaging private and public properties," the source added. It underlined that the authorities will firmly and decisively deal with those saboteurs. Homs Governor Ghassan Abdul-Al described the sabotage act as a heinous crime against a train which transports women, children and patients who were heading for Damascus for treatment. In a statement to SANA, Abdul-Al referred to the existence of railroad pieces that were loosed by the saboteurs, clarifying that a freight train had crossed from an opposite direction from Homs to Aleppo before 1.00 a.m. when the railroad was safe and tight, adding this leads to the fact that sabotage happened between 1.00 and 3.00 a.m. About the motives of saboteurs to select this spot to commit their crime, the Governor said that the area of the incident is considered as an arch for the railways from a mechanical point of view, so any derail or sliding will be deadly, but the care of God has rescued that train. He pointed out to the presence of tracks for motorcycles' tires near the bride that was selected to derail the train, particularly the road is very slippery here and might lead to a huge number of losses. Director of the Railways' General Establishment George Makaabari added that selecting this place to carry out the criminal act by saboteurs indicate their plot was targeting to kill all passengers, particularly they have loosed the links of the railroad and a number of beams to a distance of scores of meters. R. al-Jazaeri / Mazen

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