At least 45 people were killed and 110 wounded by a car bomb and two suicide bombers yesterday in Sayyidah Zaynab, where Syria’s holiest Shiite shrine is located, the Syrian Ministry of Interior said.
State TV showed footage of burning buildings and wrecked cars in the neighborhood.
Syrian state news agency SANA, quoting a ministry source, said a group of militants had detonated a car bomb near a public transport garage in the neighborhood’s Koua Sudan area.
Two suicide bombers then blew themselves up nearby as people were being rescued.
“Bodies were still being pulled from the wreckage,” a witness told the Syrian News Channel.
The heavily populated area in the south of the city is a site of pilgrimage for Shiites from Iran, Lebanon and other parts of the Muslim world.
Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi was quoted as saying the attacks were prompted by “terror groups” who sought to “raise their morale after a string of defeats” by the army.
The area surrounding the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque witnessed heavy clashes in the first few years of the war, but has since been secured by the Syrian army and Shiite militias led by Hezbollah, which has set up protective roadblocks around it.
The shrine houses the grave of the daughter of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin of the Prophet Mohammed, whom Shiites consider the rightful successor to the prophet. The dispute over the succession led to the major Sunni-Shiite schism in Islam.
Iraqi and Iranian Shiite militia groups that have volunteered to fight Sunni extremists in Syria in a conflict that has heavy sectarian overtones often say they are fighting in Syria to defend the shrine.
Many have their headquarters in the area near the shrine, according to local residents.
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