At least 14 people were killed today in a bomb attack in Damascus targeting a military bus, the most important such attack in years in the Syrian capital, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported.
“Around 6:45 (Greek time and local time) this morning, during a night military bus passing through the city of Damascus” near a bridge of strategic importance, the bus “was the target of a terrorist attack with two explosive devices attached on the bus, resulting in the death of fourteen people and causing injuries, “SANA reported, citing a military source.
A team of army firefighters “neutralized a third explosive device that fell from the bus after the explosion”, the same source added, while photos released by the Syrian agency show rescuers inspecting the completely charred bus.
So far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange.
Explosions in Damascus have been rare in recent years in Syria, especially since regime troops and pro-government militias recaptured in 2018 the largest rebel stronghold near the capital.
The attack is the deadliest in the city since the March 2017 attack on the courthouse, which killed at least 30 people and was blamed on Islamic State.
Bombings in Idlib
About an hour after the attack in Damascus, the Syrian army carried out bombings that killed 13 people, 10 of them civilians, in Idlib province, the last major stronghold of jihadists and rebels in northwestern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Of human rights.
“At eight in the morning, we woke up to bombings. “The children were terrified and crying. We did not know what to do or where to go,” Bilal Trisi, a father of two who lives near the bombed-out area, told AFP.
At the hospital where the victims were transported, a correspondent of the French Agency saw a man shouting and crying next to the body of a 10-year-old girl.
A ceasefire negotiated by Turkey – which supports the Syrian rebels – and Russia, an ally of the regime, has been in place in the region since March 2020, but sporadic clashes have been taking place.
Idlib, which is a target of the regime, is dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sam (HTS), a former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and a major enemy of the Islamic State.
The attack in Damascus and the bombings in Idlib call into question the Syrian regime's rhetoric about ending the war and returning to stability.
For months, Bashar al-Assad's regime has been trying to lift the country out of international isolation to allow reconstruction.
But the country remains fragmented. The US-backed Kurds continue to control northeastern Syria, while other areas in the north are under the control of jihadists and rebels or Turkish forces and their Syrian allies.
