Damascus: Bomb attack on army Enough In Damascus On Wednesday, 14 people were killed in the deadliest such attack on the Syrian capital in four years. sana State news agency reported.
There were no immediate claims for the bombing, but a few moments later shelling by government forces killed eight people in the Idlib region, which have claimed such attacks in the past.
“A terrorist bombing using two explosive devices targeted a passing bus”, the news agency reported, adding that 14 people were killed and at least three were injured.
Images released by Sanaa showed first responders searching for the charred body of the bus and what the news agency said was a bomb squad defuse a third device planted in the same area.
A military source, quoting the government agency, said the bomb was planted on the bus and detonated while passing by the Hafez al-Assad bridge, close to the National Museum in the heart of the capital.
Damascus had been largely spared from such violence in recent years, especially since troops and allies militia In 2018 recaptured the last important rebel stronghold near the capital.
It is the deadliest attack in the capital since the March 2017 bombing by the Islamic State jihadist group targeting the Justice Palace, killing at least 30 people.
About an hour after the Damascus attack, Syrian regime shelling struck the war-torn city of Ariha in the northwestern region of Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rocket hit a busy area as the children were on their way to school.
A UK-based war watchdog group said three children were among those killed.
An AFP reporter saw at least five bodies as first responders treated the wounded and scenes of chaos filled the streets of Ariha.
“At 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) we woke up to the bombing. The kids were scared and screaming,” said Bilal Trissi, a father of two children who lived nearby.
“We didn’t know what to do or where to go and we couldn’t see anything because of the dust around us,” he told AFP.
“They bombarded us in our neighborhood and in the market. There are children who died and there are people who lost their limbs… We don’t know why, what are we guilty of?”
The Damascus bombing will challenge the government’s claim that the decades-old war is over and that stability is guaranteed to begin the reconstruction efforts and investment projects in earnest.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad has been trying to pull itself out of international isolation and infiltration in recent months.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, nearly half a million people have died in the conflict that began in 2011 with the brutal suppression of unarmed protests demanding a change of power.
It also caused the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II, with half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million being forced to flee their homes at one point.
Assad’s position was once held by a source in which his forces and their allies control barely a fifth of Syrian territory, but Russia’s military intervention in 2015 marked the start of a long and bloody battle.
Also backed by Iran and its proxy militias, government forces have captured almost all of the country’s major cities, with US-backed Kurdish forces still operating in the northeast.
The once-spreading caliphate of Islamic State, which swarmed swaths of Iraq and Syria, shrank hard to death, which came to eastern Syria in early 2019.
Since then, the main focus of the Syrian government has been on the northwestern region of Idlib, where many rebels forced to surrender in other parts of the country have gathered.
The region is dominated by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which includes leaders of al-Qaeda’s former Syria franchise and which is somewhat dominated by Turkey.
HTS, however, has not claimed attacks in Damascus in years.
IS remnants have made landfall in eastern Syria, but continue to harass the government and allied forces in hit-and-run attacks, mostly in desert areas.
An agreement brokered by Turkey and Russia, the two main foreign players in the Syria conflict, has effectively put fighting in Idlib on standby.
Sporadic flare-ups have kept the region on the edge, and Wednesday’s shelling of Ariha was one of the most serious breaches of the ceasefire.
Assad insisted that he was committed to regaining all territories lost to the rebels at the start of the war, including the Idlib region.
There were no immediate claims for the bombing, but a few moments later shelling by government forces killed eight people in the Idlib region, which have claimed such attacks in the past.
“A terrorist bombing using two explosive devices targeted a passing bus”, the news agency reported, adding that 14 people were killed and at least three were injured.
Images released by Sanaa showed first responders searching for the charred body of the bus and what the news agency said was a bomb squad defuse a third device planted in the same area.
A military source, quoting the government agency, said the bomb was planted on the bus and detonated while passing by the Hafez al-Assad bridge, close to the National Museum in the heart of the capital.
Damascus had been largely spared from such violence in recent years, especially since troops and allies militia In 2018 recaptured the last important rebel stronghold near the capital.
It is the deadliest attack in the capital since the March 2017 bombing by the Islamic State jihadist group targeting the Justice Palace, killing at least 30 people.
About an hour after the Damascus attack, Syrian regime shelling struck the war-torn city of Ariha in the northwestern region of Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rocket hit a busy area as the children were on their way to school.
A UK-based war watchdog group said three children were among those killed.
An AFP reporter saw at least five bodies as first responders treated the wounded and scenes of chaos filled the streets of Ariha.
“At 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) we woke up to the bombing. The kids were scared and screaming,” said Bilal Trissi, a father of two children who lived nearby.
“We didn’t know what to do or where to go and we couldn’t see anything because of the dust around us,” he told AFP.
“They bombarded us in our neighborhood and in the market. There are children who died and there are people who lost their limbs… We don’t know why, what are we guilty of?”
The Damascus bombing will challenge the government’s claim that the decades-old war is over and that stability is guaranteed to begin the reconstruction efforts and investment projects in earnest.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad has been trying to pull itself out of international isolation and infiltration in recent months.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, nearly half a million people have died in the conflict that began in 2011 with the brutal suppression of unarmed protests demanding a change of power.
It also caused the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II, with half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million being forced to flee their homes at one point.
Assad’s position was once held by a source in which his forces and their allies control barely a fifth of Syrian territory, but Russia’s military intervention in 2015 marked the start of a long and bloody battle.
Also backed by Iran and its proxy militias, government forces have captured almost all of the country’s major cities, with US-backed Kurdish forces still operating in the northeast.
The once-spreading caliphate of Islamic State, which swarmed swaths of Iraq and Syria, shrank hard to death, which came to eastern Syria in early 2019.
Since then, the main focus of the Syrian government has been on the northwestern region of Idlib, where many rebels forced to surrender in other parts of the country have gathered.
The region is dominated by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which includes leaders of al-Qaeda’s former Syria franchise and which is somewhat dominated by Turkey.
HTS, however, has not claimed attacks in Damascus in years.
IS remnants have made landfall in eastern Syria, but continue to harass the government and allied forces in hit-and-run attacks, mostly in desert areas.
An agreement brokered by Turkey and Russia, the two main foreign players in the Syria conflict, has effectively put fighting in Idlib on standby.
Sporadic flare-ups have kept the region on the edge, and Wednesday’s shelling of Ariha was one of the most serious breaches of the ceasefire.
Assad insisted that he was committed to regaining all territories lost to the rebels at the start of the war, including the Idlib region.
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