Troop-bus bombs kill 14 people in Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria — Two bombs attached to a bus carrying Syrian troops exploded in Damascus during the morning rush hour Wednesday, a military official said. Fourteen people were killed in the attack, one of the deadliest in the capital in years.

While the Syrian government’s decade-long conflict with insurgents continues in parts of the country, including the rebel-held northwest, bombings in Damascus have become exceedingly rare since President Bashar Assad’s troops pushed opposition fighters from the capital’s suburbs in 2018.

Shortly after the Damascus bombings, government shells landed in a rebel-held town in northern Syria, killing at least 10 people, four of them children. The attack, part of the government campaign to regain control of areas still in opposition hands, was the worst violence in the region since a truce in March last year was negotiated by Turkey and Russia, allies of the opposition and Syrian government, respectively.

Assad’s forces now control much of Syria after military support from Russia and Iran helped tip the balance of power in his favor. U.S. and Turkish troops, meanwhile, are deployed in parts of the country’s north.

A little known group calling itself the Qasioun Brigades claimed responsibility for the explosions in Damascus, saying the bombs were attached under the bus. It added in a short statement posted on social media that attacks in government-held areas will continue in retaliation for “massacres committed against our people in the liberated north.”