Suicide bomber blows himself up in Damascus center

PanARMENIAN.Net - A suicide bomber has blown himself up in the center of the Syrian capital, Damascus, officials and activists say, according to BBC News.

State media said troops had foiled an attack by a “terrorist group in the Rukn al-Din district, where several major security facilities are located”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bomber appeared to target an army general responsible for logistics.

Mohammed Eid and two of his guards were wounded, while a third guard was killed, the UK-based group added. However, security sources denied that Gen Eid had been targeted.

Monday's attack took place near a building used by the Syrian army's munitions and supply division. Witnesses told the AFP that the blast emanated from a small motorcycle, and that it was followed by 15 minutes of gunfire.

"A terrorist group rode into the Rukn al-Din neighbourhood on motorcycles and began clashing with security forces," a security official said.

"When they realized they could not escape, one of them detonated a suicide belt he was wearing," he said, adding that security forces killed the remaining rebels.

A local hospital said it was treating six people wounded by the explosion, but did not identify them.

Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Gen Eid was among those injured, but that was denied by the security official.

Many senior officials live in Rukn al-Din and a number of branches of Syria's intelligence apparatus are based there, according to Abdul Rahman.

A resident of Rukn al-Din told Reuters that the army had sealed off main roads in the area after the incident and detained scores of people.

The heavily-defended center of Damascus has seen several major bombings since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, but suicide bombings are rare. In 2012, the defense minister, the president's brother-in-law and the head of his crisis team were killed by a bomb blast at the National Security Bureau's headquarters in the capital.