Syria: Car Bomb in Damascus Kills One; Drone Strike Targets Two Vehicles

View of the skyline of Damascus on June 26, 2013. (AFP)
View of the skyline of Damascus on June 26, 2013. (AFP)
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Syria: Car Bomb in Damascus Kills One; Drone Strike Targets Two Vehicles

View of the skyline of Damascus on June 26, 2013. (AFP)
View of the skyline of Damascus on June 26, 2013. (AFP)

A bomb attached to a car exploded early Saturday in the western part of the Syrian capital that is home to several diplomatic missions, killing one person and causing material damage, state media reported.

Damascus’ Mazze neighborhood houses the Iranian consulate, destroyed last month in a strike blamed on Israel. The attack at the time killed seven people including two Iranian generals and a member of Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah and triggered a direct Iranian military assault on Israel for the first time, sparking fears of a regionwide war, The AP reported.

Several airstrikes have hit the tightly-secured neighborhood over the past months, mostly targeting Iranian officials.

State news agency, SANA, didn't say who the person killed was but said the blast set two other cars ablaze.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the man killed in the explosion was a Mazze resident 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 blast in Damascus, an Israeli drone strike reportedly targeted a car and a truck outside the western Syrian town of Qusair, northwest of Damascus, close to Lebanon's border, the Observatory and a Beirut-based pan-Arab TV station reported.

The strike hit the two vehicles near Dabaa air base. Qusair and its suburbs were struck several times over the past months by Israeli drones targeting Hezbollah fighters who have a presence in the area.

The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV didn't say if there were casualties, but the Observatory said two Hezbollah members were killed and several others wounded in the drone strike.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israeli forces have traded cross-border fire a day after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7 on almost daily basis. 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 an Associated Press tally.

Meanwhile, Israel says at least 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have so far been killed in the clashes.

Tehran has been sending advisers to Syria since the country’s conflict, which later turned into civil war, began in March 2011. Iran-backed fighters have helped tip the balance of power in favor of President Bashar Assad government in the conflict that has killed half a million people.

Iran’s military presence in Syria has been a major concern for Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment along its northern border. Syria has accused Israel of carrying out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts in recent years — but Israel has rarely acknowledged such strikes.



RSF Leader: Armed Groups Responsible for Escalation in Sudan's El Fasher

Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)
Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)
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RSF Leader: Armed Groups Responsible for Escalation in Sudan's El Fasher

Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)
Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo in southern Darfur. (AFP file photo)

Commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti, slammed on Sunday the “popular resistance,” saying they were a cover for the brigades of the ousted regime and whose members were from the army and other security forces.

In a voice recording on Eid al-Adha, he congratulated the Sudanese people on the occasion, saying their country was “going through extraordinary circumstances because of the war that was sparked by the Islamist movement with the help of the army command.”

This was Daglo’s first address to the public in two months.

“We are pained by the conditions our citizens are going through and we are working on easing their suffering to achieve peace and stability and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid,” he went on to say.

On the situation in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, Daglo blamed the escalation there on armed factions “that have abandoned neutrality and chosen to side with their slaughterer.”

“They attacked our forces, so we had no choice but to defend ourselves,” he stressed.

He said the development in Wad al-Noura in al-Jazirah state was a military battle between the RSF, army, Islamist movement brigades and the security agency. He declared that the RSF succeeded in deciding the battle in its favor.

Clashes in the rural town have left over 100 people dead and injured.

Daglo stressed the importance of opening humanitarian corridors to deliver aid to the people. “We reject the practices committed by the gang in Port Sudan,” he added, in reference to the army.

He blamed the military for impeding the delivery of aid throughout Sudan, accusing it of war crimes.