The terrorist Islamic State group (IS) said it carried out Sunday’s attacks in Damascus and Homs.

Syrians are still mourning the death of at least 140 people for which terrorist Islamic State (IS) militant group claims responsibility.

The group said it carried out Sunday, February 21, 2016 bomb attacks in which four blasts in Sayyida Zeinab, the southern suburb of the capital Damascus killed at least 83 people and an earlier double car bombing in the city of Homs killed 57 people. BBC reported citing a monitoring group reports that both attacks targeted areas dominated by Islamic minorities reviled by the Sunni Muslim radicals of IS.

Sunday’s attacks in Damascus, BBC cited the state-run Sana news agency as reporting,  killed at least 83 people and wounded 178 others.  It is the location of Syria's holiest Shia Muslim shrine, said to contain the grave of the Prophet Muhammad's granddaughter. The Amaq news agency, which is linked to IS, reportedly said IS militants had detonated a car bomb and then blown up explosive belts. In Homs, the blasts happened in a predominantly Alawite district, the sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

The attacks took place shortly after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly declared that Syrian refugees should not be scared of returning home. “We want people to come back to Syria,” BBC quoted him as saying. Mr Assad, who has long been accused of persecuting his own people, said ordinary Syrians who had fled the conflict due to the "standard of living that has been deteriorating drastically" could go back without fear of action by the government.

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict. Some 11 million others have been forced from their homes, of whom four million have fled abroad.