DM Monitoring
DAMASCUS: A bomb attack on a bus carrying troops in the Syrian capital Damascus has killed at least 14 military personnel and wounded three others, state TV and a military official said.
The attack early on Wednesday was quickly followed by army shelling in rebel-held Idlib province, which rescue workers said killed 12 people.
The Damascus bombing was the deadliest in the capital in years, and a rare event since government forces captured suburbs formerly held by opposition fighters in Syria’s 10-year-long conflict.
About an hour after the bus blast, shells rained down on Ariha in Idlib in the northwest of the country, one of the last areas still held by rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad.
Four children and a teacher on their way to school were among those confirmed killed, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said. Rescue workers said at least 30 people were wounded. “The numbers of children injured and killed continue to increase,” UNICEF said in a statement.
Syrian state TV showed footage of the charred bus in central Damascus, saying the attack occurred during rush hour when people were heading to work and school.
Two explosive devices went off as the bus was near the Hafez al-Assad bridge, it said, adding a third device was defused by an army engineering unit in what officials said was a “terrorist” blast.
“It is a cowardly act,” Damascus police commander Major General Hussein Jumaa told state TV, adding that a police force had cordoned off the area immediately and made sure there were no more bombs. He urged people to inform authorities about any suspicious object they see.
Joseph Daher, affiliate professor with the wartime and post-conflict Syria project at the European University Institute, said the Damascus explosion shows once again that Syria is “very far from any kind of stability”.
“The regime is threatened by multiple actors,” he said, speaking from Geneva. “This type of terrorist action is a trademark by the so-called Islamic State [ISIL], which despite the 2019 defeat by US joint forces and SDF did not mean the end of the organisation, and still poses as a threat and security challenge especially after the change of the strategy.”
