Blasts at restaurant in Syrian capital and at the Palace of Justice follow another double suicide bombing there at the weekend

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This article is more than 2 years old

At least 31 people have been killed and dozens more wounded after two suicide bomb attacks in Damascus, state media reported, the second double bombing in the Syrian capital in five days.

The first suicide bomber targeted the Palace of Justice, the main courthouse in central Damascus near the Old City. The justice minister, Najem al-Ahmad, told reporters the initial death toll was 31, mostly civilians.

The second suicide blast struck a restaurant in the al-Rabweh area, to the west of the first attack, causing several casualties, state media reported.

State news agency SANA cited the Damascus police as saying that there were 102 injured in the courthouse attack and 28 injured in the restaurant.

Analysts who follow Syria have predicted that, as jihadist rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad suffer military reverses, they will increasingly turn to guerrilla attacks in territory controlled by the government.

The bombings come on the sixth anniversary of the start of the Syrian conflict, which began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility.

The courthouse bomber set off an explosive device at 1.20pm as police tried to search him and stop him from entering the building, state television reported the Damascus police chief as saying.

Syrian state television broadcast footage from inside the courthouse showing blood splattered on a floor littered with papers, a shoe, broken tiles and stones. Images from a hospital showed a man in a suit on a stretcher with blood on his clothes.

The explosion hit the courthouse at a time when the area was crowded with lawyers, judges and civilians, harming a large number of people, Ahmed al-Sayyid, a senior state legal official told state-run al-Ikhbariya TV.

“This is a dirty action as people who enter the palace are innocent,” he said, noting that the timing of the explosion appeared to have been planned to kill the largest number of lawyers, judges and other people who were there at the time.

Ambulances rushed to the scene to transfer casualties to hospital.



“We were terrified because the sound of the explosion was enormous,” a lawyer in the building during the attack said. “We took refuge in the library, which is on a higher floor,” the lawyer added, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was a bloody scene.”

On Wednesday the UN Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said negotiations to end the war must speed up.

“There is no way that we should be accepting the fact that the sixth anniversary becomes the seventh,” he said. “It’s becoming one of the longest and most cruel wars of recent years. That’s why there is a need for an acceleration of any type of negotiations – in Astana, in Geneva, in New York, wherever.”

On Saturday, scores of people, most of them Iraqi Shia pilgrims, were killed in a double suicide bombing in Damascus claimed by an alliance of jihadi groups known as Tahrir al-Sham.

Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.</s>The town - Adra al-Omalia - is about 30 km (19 miles) from central Damascus but far from parts of Syria where the United States has launched air strikes against Islamic State militants.

Syrian state TV said the armed forces had "imposed their control over the city of Adra al-Omalia and eliminated a number of terrorists." Troops were combing the area and clearing out explosives planted by militants, it added.

Assad's forces, backed by the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, have been gradually extending control over a corridor of territory from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast this year, seizing towns and villages along the main north-south highway and in the mountainous Qalamoun area along the Lebanese border.

The advances in Adra al-Omalia show that the government is continuing to press that campaign as U.S.-led forces bombard Islamic State positions elsewhere in the country.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the government had taken control of Adra al-Omalia after clashes with rebels including some from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, whose positions have also been hit by U.S. air strikes.

The Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of sources, earlier said at least 29 people - 18 of them rebel fighters - died during fighting on Wednesday between insurgents and government forces in the outskirts of Damascus.

State TV broadcast what is said was live footage from the town showing soldiers standing in the area near buildings that had collapsed or were smashed up.

Many Syrian activists and rebels have criticised the United States for focussing on striking Islamic State and other militant groups while doing little to bring down Assad.

Syria's conflict started as a peaceful protest movement but, after a government crackdown, turned into a war that has killed more than 190,000 people over more than three years. Fighting still regularly kills nearly 200 people a day.

On Wednesday, a Syrian government minister gave guarded support for the U.S.-led air strikes, saying they were going in the "right direction".</s>BEIRUT: A second bomb attack hit the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday in an area to the west of an earlier suicide attack, state media said.

A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people in the earlier attack at a courthouse in Damascus, state media reported.</s>A Syrian child pulls a plastic crate carrying water containers in the once rebel-held Shaar neighbourhood in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on March 9 (AFP photo)

BEIRUT — They Syrian army and its allies gained control of an arterial road in a small rebel pocket in northeast Damascus early on Monday, bringing them close to splitting the enclave in two, a Britain-based war monitor reported.

The advance was along a road that links the besieged districts of Barza, Al Qaboun and Tishrin near the Eastern Ghouta area of towns and farms that spreads out from the Syrian capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Barza, Qaboun and Tishrin area had already been isolated from the main rebel enclave in Eastern Ghouta, a region that has witnessed increasing violence since the beginning of the year.

There was also fighting overnight between the army and its allies and rebels in the southern city of Deraa, and in areas near Aleppo in the northwest and Hama in the west accompanied by heavy bombardment and air strikes, the observatory said.

Syria’s civil war pits President Bashar Assad backed by Russian air power, Iran and regional Shiite militias against mostly Sunni rebels that include extremists as well as groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies.

The war has dragged in regional and global powers, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and sparked the worst refugee crisis since the second world war since it grew out of a mass uprising against Assad that began six years ago on Wednesday.

Assad’s allies Russia and Iran and the rebels’ backer Turkey sent delegations on Monday to Astana in Kazakhstan for a new round of peace talks, but insurgents on Saturday demanded it be postponed because fighting has continued despite a ceasefire.

The army and its allies are trying to force rebels to agree to truces similar to those that have led to the evacuation of thousands of opposition fighters to northern Syria from other besieged pockets.

It has for weeks concentrated air strikes on Qaboun district, effectively ending a ceasefire that rebels in the area agreed with the Syrian army which had been in place since the end of 2013. Barza also agreed a full truce with the government in 2014.</s>"A terrorist explosion in the Rabweh area in Damascus," state TV reported. The blast reportedly took place in a restaurant in Damascus' north-west, a security source told Sputnik.

According to the source, law enforcement officials pursued three suicide bombers who intended to blow themselves up after the terrorist attack that occurred earlier in the day. One of the terrorists entered the restaurant and activated an explosive device.

The number of possible victims of the blast is unknown so far, but there are killed and injured, the source said.

Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber caused an explosion in the Palace of Justice in Damascus killing at least 31 and injuring 60.

The two explosions on Wednesday took place four days after a deadly twin suicide blast in Damascus. On Saturday, two blasts occurred near Bab al-Saghir cemetery in Damascus. Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Shaar confirmed that at least 40 people were killed and 120 injured as a result of the attack.

The Tahrir al Sham militant group, which was organized at the initiative of the Jabhat Fatah al Sham terror group (formerly known as al-Nusra Front), is said to have claimed responsibility for the attack.</s>BEIRUT: At least 25 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a court house in Damascus on Wednesday, state media reported, the second bomb attack in the Syrian capital in five days.

The attack targeted the Palace of Justice in central Damascus not far from the Old City. State news agency SANA said there were a "number of wounded" in addition to the initial death toll of 25.

The bomber set off his explosive device after the police tried to stop him from entering the building, Ahmed al-Sayyid, a senior state legal official told al-Ikhbariya TV.

No further details were immediately available.

On Saturday, scores of people, most of them Iraqi Shi'ite pilgrims, were killed in a double suicide attack in Damascus claimed by an alliance of jihadist groups known as Tahrir al-Sham.</s>Two suicide bomb attacks killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens more in Damascus on Wednesday, state media reported, in the second such spate of bombings in the Syrian capital in five days.

The first suicide bomber targeted the Palace of Justice, the main courthouse in central Damascus near the Old City. Justice Minister Najem al-Ahmad told reporters the initial death toll was 31, mostly civilians.

The second suicide blast struck a restaurant in the al-Rabweh area of Damascus to the west of the first attack causing several casualties, state media reported.

State news agency SANA cited the Damascus police as saying that there were 102 injured in the courthouse attack and 28 injured in the restaurant.

Analysts who follow Syria have predicted that as rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad suffer military reverses, they will increasingly turn to guerrilla attacks in territory controlled by the government.

As well as the Damascus bombings of recent days, which coincide with the sixth anniversary of the protests that sparked Syria’s civil war, attackers also twice struck the government-held city of Homs in the past few weeks.

The courthouse bomber set off his explosive device at 1:20 p.m. (1120 GMT) as the police tried to search him and stop him from entering the building, state television cited the Damascus police chief as saying.

Syrian state television broadcast footage from inside the courthouse showing blood splattered on a floor littered with papers, a shoe and broken tiles and stones. Images from a hospital showed a man in a suit on a stretcher with blood on his clothes.

The explosion hit the courthouse “at a time when the area is crowded” with lawyers, judges and civilians, harming a large number of people, Ahmed al-Sayyid, a senior state legal official told state-run al-Ikhbariya TV.

He later added that 45 people had been wounded. No further details were immediately available.

The government and its allies, Russia’s air force, Iran and Shi’ite militias, have also maintained a fierce assault on some rebel-held areas including air strikes and artillery bombardments.

Assad and his allies describe all the rebels fighting against the government, which include jihadists as well as nationalist groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as terrorists.

“The attack came as a retaliation against the latest victories of the Syrian army and the political victories in Geneva and Astana,” Ahmad said, referring to recent peace talks in Switzerland and Kazakhstan.

State media reported that the second bomber had entered the restaurant and detonated the device after having been chased by security forces.

On Saturday scores of people, most of them Iraqi Shi’ite pilgrims, were killed in a double suicide attack in Damascus claimed by an alliance of jihadist groups known as Tahrir al-Sham.

In late February an attack in central Homs killed dozens of people with coordinated shootings and suicide bombs that targeted two security headquarters and led to the death of a senior official.

That attack was also claimed by Tahrir al-Sham, which includes the Fateh al-Sham group that was formerly known as the Nusra Front until it formally broke ties with al Qaeda last year.

Another suicide attack in Homs on Tuesday killed one person and injured two others, a witness told Reuters.</s>journalists gather at the entrance of the main judicial building which was attacked by a suicide bomber, in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, March 15, 2017.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Suicide bombers hit the main judicial building and a restaurant in Damascus on Wednesday, killing at least 30 people, according to state media, spreading fear across Syria's capital as the country's civil war enters its seventh year.

The first attacker struck inside the Justice Palace, located near the famous and crowded Hamidiyeh market. The explosion left bodies lying amid pools of blood and shattered glass in the building's main hall, adorned with a picture of President Bashar Assad hanging on one of the walls.

The official news agency, SANA, said another suicide explosion struck a restaurant in Rabweh district of Damascus, leading to multiple casualties, mostly women and children. The Ikhbariyeh TV channel said the attacker was being chased by security agents when he ran into a restaurant and detonated his explosives' vest there.

The bombings were the latest in a spate of deadly explosions and suicide attacks targeting government-controlled areas in Syria and its capital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack, but other, similar attacks in recent weeks were claimed by al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria.

The attacks came as Syrians mark the sixth anniversary of the country's bitter civil war, which has killed more than 400,000 people and displaced millions of others. The conflict began in March 2011 as a popular uprising against Assad's rule but quickly descended into a full-blown civil war. The chaos allowed al-Qaida and later the Islamic State group to gain a foothold in the war-torn nation.

The recent attacks have struck at highly symbolic targets, and may mark the start of a new insurgency campaign by al-Qaida-linked militants to try and counter recent military advances by Assad's forces, backed by Russia and Iran.

According to Damascus police chief Mohammad Kheir Ismail, the Justice Palace attacker struck in the early afternoon — at 1.20 p.m. A man wearing a military uniform and carrying a shotgun and grenades arrived at the entrance to the palace, the police chief told state TV.

The guards stopped the man, took away his arms and tried to search him. At that point, the man hurled himself inside the building and detonated his explosives, the chief said.

Syria's attorney general, Ahmad al-Sayed, who was in the building just a few meters away from the explosion, confirmed that account to state TV, saying that when the security guards tried to arrest the man, he threw himself inside the palace and blew himself up. He said 30 people were killed and 45 others wounded.

"This is a dirty action as people who enter the palace are innocent," he said, noting that the timing of the explosion was planned to kill the largest number of lawyers, judges and other people who were there at the time.

Ambulances rushed to the scene to transfer casualties to hospital.

In the second attack, in Rabweh district, SANA said a suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant, killing several people. The Ikhbariyeh TV channel said the attacker was being chased by security agents when he rushed into a restaurant and detonated his explosives.

Wednesday's bombings followed twin attacks on Saturday near holy shrines frequented by Shiites in Damascus that killed at least 40 people.

On Feb. 25, insurgents stormed into heavily guarded security offices in Syria's central city of Homs, clashed with government troops and then blew themselves up, killing a senior officer and at least 31 others.

The high profile attacks were claimed by an al-Qaida-linked insurgent coalition known as the Levant Liberation Committee, formerly known as the Nusra Front.

Wednesday's attacks also came during a new round of peace talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana. Syria's armed opposition boycotted those talks due to what they say are ongoing government military offensives across the country.

Syria's U.N. ambassador said earlier Wednesday that he was concluding his participation in the latest round in Astana, after two days of meetings without rebels. Bashar Jaafari said discussions were "constructive" but only one official paper was produced — about demining Palmyra, the historic Syrian town that pro-government forces recaptured from the Islamic State group two weeks ago.

Syrian rebels did not send any delegates to this, third round in Astana, accusing the government and Russia — one of Damascus' main backers — of breaking cease-fire pledges and obligations to distribute humanitarian aid.

The Astana talks, brokered by Russia and Turkey, are centered on reaching a cease-fire in Syria and getting humanitarian relief to millions of suffering civilians. They run parallel to the U.N.-mediated political talks in Geneva aimed at ending Syria's civil war.

Meanwhile, taking stock of six years of Syria's civil war, the U.N. health agency said in Geneva on Wednesday that over half of all hospitals and public health centers in the violence-wracked country have closed or are partially functioning, and nearly two-thirds of health-care workers have fled.

The head of the World Health Organization's emergencies program, Peter Salama, said resources to help the health care system are "stretched to the limit," citing security threats to health care workers and a lack of access to medicines and medical equipment.

Salama called for "systematic and unhindered access" for life-saving materials like vaccines and medical supplies "on this sad anniversary of the start of war in Syria and before more lives are lost."

AP writers Philip Issa in Beirut and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.</s>iStock/Thinkstock(DAMASCUS, Syria) — A bomb blast ripped through the main judicial building in Syria’s capital city Wednesday, killing dozens, according to various media reports.

Syria’s state-owned television reported that at least 25 people were killed and many others wounded when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest inside the “old building” of the Palace of Justice in central Damascus, not far from the famous and crowded Souq al-Hamidiyah market.

Soon after, state media reported a second suicide bomber detonated a device at a restaurant in the city’s Rabweh district, killing several people.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the death toll from the first attack to be at least 39, including 24 civilians and seven police officers and guards. It’s unclear whether the remaining eight casualties were civilians, the U.K.-based monitoring group said.</s>At least 25 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack at the main judicial building in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to state media.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives' vest inside the Justice Palace on Wednesday, SANA news agency said, adding that another 25 people were wounded in the attack.

A second blast in the capital was reported shortly after the first. Breaking news on state television said a suicide bomber had detonated himself at a restaurant in the Rabweh area of Damascus and that a number of people had been killed and wounded.

There was no immediate claim for the bombing, which came as the country's civil war entered its seventh year.
According to Syrian state media, two suicide bombers attack in Damascus, killing at least 31 people.