At least 21 killed in triple car blasts across Damascus
2 July 2017 10:02 PM IST
At least 21 people have been killed in three car bombings that rocked the Syrian capital Damascus, a monitoring group reports.
The dead included seven regime soldiers and allied paramilitaries in addition to three suicide attackers who were driving the explosives-packed cars, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.
The other fatalities are believed to be civilians. The watchdog expected the toll to further rise as some people were seriously injured in Sunday's blasts that took place in two different areas in Damascus. Syria's state news agency SANA said one car bomb was detonated by a suicide attacker near Tahrir Square in central Damascus, resulting in an unspecified number of dead or injured.
Citing the Interior Ministry, the state-run agency, however, claimed that the two other car bomb attacks were unsuccessful, and were purposefully detonated on a road leading to the Damascus airport by security authorities that had tracked down the vehicles. Syrian Minister of Local Administration Hussein Makhlouf visited the site of
one blast.
He said the bombings were part of a "terrorist plot" in Damascus, which is the power base of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "The specialized agencies have thwarted the terrorist plot that targeted to hit populous places in order to cause the highest possible casualties," Makhlouf said without elaborating. Sunday was the first day of work in Damascus after the end of a holiday marking the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr. So far, there has been no claim of responsibility. Damascus has seen several deadly attacks since Syria's civil conflict erupted in 2011.
In mid-March, bomb attacks on a courthouse and restaurant in central Damascus killed 32 people. That rare assault in the heart of the city, which remains under government control, was claimed by the Islamic State group.
That came days after two explosions that left 74 dead in the capital's Old City and were claimed by the Tahrir al-Sham coalition led by the jihadist Fateh al-Sham Front. Battlefronts around Damascus have calmed since a May deal that saw opposition fighters withdraw from several neighbourhoods.
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