2023-07-27 22:36:21
At least six people were killed and more than 20 others injured on Thursday in Syria in the explosion of a device near the mausoleum of Sayeda Zeinab, a major Shiite pilgrimage site south of Damascus, according to the Syrian authorities.
The Ministry of the Interior communicated this Thursday evening a new death toll of six, according to the official news agency Sana, after an initial report from the Ministry of Health reporting 5 dead and 26 injured.
No claim
In a previous press release, the Ministry of the Interior had indicated that the “terrorist” attack was due to “the explosion of a motorcycle near a taxi”, affirming that “the investigations were continuing”.
Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabach went to the bedside of the wounded, after “the explosion of a device in Sayeda Zeinab which left 5 dead and 26 wounded”, in addition to 20 other wounded who “were treated on the spot or who have already left the hospitals, ”said the ministry. The attack was not immediately claimed.
Syrian state television had previously reported an “explosive device placed by unknown persons in a taxi”. A source at Al-Sadr Hospital in the Sayeda Zeinab area where the mausoleum is located said ten injured people had been admitted to the facility, including one in serious condition.
« Enorme explosion »
“We heard a huge explosion and people started running (…) then ambulances arrived and security forces cordoned off the area,” Ibrahim, a 39-year-old civil servant, told AFP.
The attack took place “near a building of the security services (…) and 600 meters from the mausoleum of Sayeda Zeinab”, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and the daughter of Imam Ali, the founding figure of the Shia Islam, he said. In recent days, the authorities have tightened security measures in the area, on the eve of Achoura, the most important Shia Muslim holiday.
On Tuesday, two civilians were injured in a motorcycle explosion in the same area, according to state media citing a security official. With its mosque with turquoise ceramics and a gold cupola in the Iranian style, the Sayeda Zeinab complex has been defended, since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, by Shiite militiamen, in particular Lebanese and Iraqis, alongside the army of Damascus.
Nearly half a million dead
Claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, a double suicide attack in February 2016, 400 meters from the mausoleum, killed 134 people, including more than 90 civilians. A few weeks earlier, IS had also claimed responsibility for a triple explosion near the shrine, which killed at least 70 people.
After a meteoric rise in power in 2014 in Syria and Iraq, IS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” waver under the impact of successive offensives launched in these two countries with the support of an international anti-jihadist coalition.
The defeat of IS in Syria was proclaimed in 2019, but the coalition remained in the country to fight against jihadist cells which continue to operate there. The conflict in Syria, where several powers and jihadist groups are involved, has since 2011 killed nearly half a million people, ravaged infrastructure and displaced millions of people.
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