Security forces intercept three car bombers on their way to Damascus on Sunday, one of them manages to make his way in and blow himself up at Tahrir Square district
Syrians inspect the damage at the site of the suicide bomb attack in the capital. Pic/AFP
A suicide car bomber pursued by security forces blew himself up in eastern Damascus yesterday, with a monitor reporting 18 killed in the deadliest attack to hit the Syrian capital in months.
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Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said security forces intercepted three car bombers on their way into the city early on Sunday morning. State television said two of the vehicles were blown up on the outskirts of the city. A third managed to reach the eastern Tahrir Square district, where he was surrounded but able to detonate a bomb.
Tahrir Square resident Mohammad Tinawi told AFP that he had heard "gunfire at around 6 am, then an explosion that smashed the glass of houses in the neighbourhood." He said he had seen Red Crescent volunteers treating two wounded soldiers.
The Observatory, a Britain-based monitor, said 18 people were killed in the bombing, including at least seven members of pro-regime security forces and two civilians. It had not identified the remaining victims. Syrian state news agency SANA quoted an interior ministry statement as saying two of the vehicles had been "destroyed" at a roundabout on the road to the city’s airport. The driver of the third blew himself up while being pursued, it said, "killing a number of civilians, injuring others, and causing material damage to public and private properties."
07 Members of the security forces killed in the blast
02 Civilians killed in the blast at Tahrir Square district
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