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IED explodes in central Damascus

April 16, 2013 By Ahmed Kwider A sticky bomb placed […]


16 April 2013

April 16, 2013

By Ahmed Kwider

0416SANA

A sticky bomb placed under a car denotated on Tuesday morning outside a bakery in the al-Fahameh district of Damascus. The explosion damaged several cars, with no injuries reported.

A small-scale bomb exploded Tuesday morning in downtown Damascus outside a bakery, destroying several parked cars with no injuries reported. 

The Syrian state media blamed “a terrorist group” for the bomb, which was either a sticky bomb planted under or car or possibly an IED (improvised explosive device).

No group claimed credit for the explosion, which went off at 8:10am, witnesses told SAS News. “It is a crowded area full of civilians,” said Mazen a-Shami, a Damascus-based reporter with the opposition Sham News Network.

A-shami said he believes the regime was behind the blast “to diminish the popularity of the Free Syrian Army among the people.”

The bomb appeared to target people entering and leaving the bakery, not a military checkpoint about 100 meters away from the blast site, said a citizen journalist in Damascus who requested anonymity. “Many people stand in line in the mornings at the bakery and there is always a traffic jam there, too,” he said.

A-Shami and the citizen journalist both said that Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah fighters regularly man the checkpoint. 

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