Moscow slams deadly mortar attack on Damascus University
MOSCOW. March 29 (Interfax) - Moscow has condemned a mortar attack on Damascus University on Thursday that reportedly killed about 15 students and injured others, and said "the escalating terrorist activity of anti-government forces" threatens the security of Syria and neighboring countries.
"We resolutely condemn this latest in a series of terrorist crimes. We send our condolences to the families of those killed," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement posted on the ministry's website, www.mid.ru, on Friday.
"The escalating terrorist activity of anti-government forces in Syria, on the one hand, and increasing foreign support for them, including supplies of financial resources and weapons, on the other, jeopardize the security not only of Syria but also of neighboring states," he said.
"It is particularly alarming that increasingly often anti-government forces use in their raids the tactic of mortar attacks on public places and densely populated urban districts. This is done blindly, indiscriminately, which inevitably leads to innocent deaths," Lukashevich said.
"This time, the target of an attack was the site of the oldest secular educational institution in the Middle East, the alma mater of outstanding members of the Arab intellectual elite, public figures and politicians," he said.
The mortar fire hit the architecture faculty.