35 killed in Damascus car bomb attack

PanARMENIAN.Net - A car bomb killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 200 in central Damascus on Thursday, February 21 when it exploded on a busy highway close to ruling Baath Party offices and the Russian embassy, Syrian television said, according to Reuters.

TV footage showed at least four charred and bloodied bodies strewn across the street after the blast, which state media said was the result of a suicide bombing by "terrorists" battling President Bashar al-Assad.

Central Damascus has been relatively insulated from almost two years of unrest and civil war in which around 70,000 people have been killed across the country, but the bloodshed has shattered suburbs around the capital.

Rebels who control districts to the south and east of Damascus have attacked Assad's power base for nearly a month and struck with devastating bombs over the last year.

The al Qaeda-linked rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra, which claimed responsibility for several of those bombs, says it carried out 17 attacks around Damascus in the first half of February, including at least seven bombings.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll from Thursday's attack in the Mazraa district of Damascus at 31, mostly civilians. Other activists said 40 people had died, including children from a nearby school.

Opposition activists reported further explosions elsewhere in the city after the mid-morning explosion in Mazraa. One resident in the heart of the capital heard three or four projectiles whistling through the sky, followed by explosions. At least one of them landed in a public garden in the Abu Rummaneh district, she said, but no one was hurt.