Syria War: Damascus and Suweida hit by deadly blast

Ana Ghoib Syeikh Malaya 12:18 PG
A security chief was reportedly killed in the Suweida attack: Photo credit Reuters via BBC News

Eight people have been killed in a blast in the centre of the Syrian capital, Damascus, the Sana state news agency reports.

It said 50 were also wounded in the Hijaz Square explosion, which hit the offices of the railway company.

Eight people were also killed by a rare blast in the town of Suweida, home to Syria's Druze minority, say reports.

Suweida has remained under government control through the conflict, and had so far been largely free of violence.

Wednesday's blast there went off outside the headquarters of the Air Force Intelligence, the most feared security service in Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said it had been a suicide car bomb and that the intelligence branch chief was among those killed.

Sana blamed the attack on "terrorists", the government's way of referring to rebels forces.

Syria's Druze minority - adherents of an offshoot of Shia Islam - numbers about 700,000. Its main leadership has so far stayed out of the conflict publicly.

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