At least 26 dead after Syria ‘suicide attack’
At least 26 people have been killed and many wounded in a bomb attack in Syria’s capital, Damascus, the government says. Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum has the latest.
TV footage showed body parts, bloodstains and broken glass from the blast in the Maidan district, along with people shouting that this was the work of terrorists.
Several riot police shields could be seen in a wrecked bus which was among several vehicles with smashed windows.
The government and opposition groups both blame each other for the blast.
An opposition activist in Damascus denied the pro-democracy movement had anything to do with the Maidan attack, suggesting that Islamist militants might have been involved.
“It seems clear that there is a growing extremist Islamist presence in Syria these days, and I think there are hundreds of these extremists willing to fight the regime and blow themselves up in the name of jihad,” said the activist, who asked not to be named.
He predicted more such attacks in the future. “We will be seeing more and more of these explosions in Syria in the coming days, I am sorry to say,” he warned.
Anthony Tucker-Jones: Has Syria reached the point of no return?
Mounting death toll
The latest blast precedes an Arab League meeting in Cairo this weekend at which a special committee on Syria will debate the initial findings of an observer mission which arrived in the country on 27 December.
Four days before the mission’s arrival, at least 44 people were killed by what the Syrian authorities said were two suicide bombings against security buildings in Damascus.
The presence of the mission had raised hopes that the daily death toll would drop. Syria has seen more than 5,000 civilians killed since the country’s uprising started 10 months ago.
But before today’s attack at least 220 are reported to have been killed since the observers’ arrival. In November a UN commission of inquiry found that Syrian authorities had committed crimes against humanity, including the torture and rape of children, in its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.
