BEIRUT (AP) — A bomb attached to a car exploded early Saturday in the western part of the Syrian capital, home to several diplomatic missions, killing one person and causing property damage, state media reported.
The Mazze neighborhood of Damascus is home to the Iranian consulate, which was destroyed last month in an attack blamed on Israel. The attack killed seven people at the time, including two Iranian generals and a member of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and led to the first direct Iranian military attack on Israel, raising fears of a war across the country. region.
Several airstrikes have hit the highly secured neighborhood in recent months, mainly targeting Iranian officials.
State news agency SANA did not say who the dead person was, but said the blast had set fire to two other cars.
Rami Abdurrahman, head of the British-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the man killed in the explosion was a resident of Mazze who carried a card identifying him as a Syrian army officer. Abdurrahman said the dead man had close ties to the Iranians.
Hours after the Damascus blast, an Israeli drone strike reportedly targeted a car and a truck outside the western Syrian town of Qusair, northwest of Damascus, close to the border with Lebanon, the Observatory and a Beirut-based agency said. pan-Arab TV station.
The attack hit the two vehicles near Dabaa air base. Qusair and its suburbs have been hit several times in recent months by Israeli drones targeting Hezbollah fighters present in the area.
Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV did not say if there were any casualties, but the Observatory said two Hezbollah members were killed and several others injured in the drone strike.
Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel forces have exchanged cross-border fire almost daily a day after the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7. Since then, more than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters, and more than 70 civilians and non-combatants, according to Associated Press figures.
Meanwhile, Israel says at least 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed in the clashes so far.
Tehran has been sending advisers to Syria since the country’s conflict, which later turned into civil war, began in March 2011 and killed half a million people. Iranian-backed fighters have helped tilt the balance of power in favor of President Bashar Assad’s government.
Iran’s military presence in Syria is a major concern for Israel, which has pledged to end Iran’s entrenchment along its northern border. Syria has accused Israel of carrying out hundreds of attacks on targets in government-controlled parts in recent years – but Israel has rarely acknowledged such attacks.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas led militants in a surprise attack on southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. Israel responded with a retaliatory war that has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, according to health officials in Gaza.
