A suicide bombing hit Syria’s capital yesterday, killing 26 and wounding dozens of mostly civilians, state media said, blaming “terrorists” for the second such attack on the city in two weeks.
The bomber blew himself up at 10.55 a.m. (0855 GMT) in the historic Midan quarter in a crowded area near a school, Interior Minister Lieutenant General Mohammad al-Shaar was quoted as saying by the Sana news agency.
Authorities have found 11 dead bodies and parts of 15 others, the interior minister said, adding that 63 others were wounded by the blast.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which accused President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of orchestrating the December 23 twin suicide attacks in Damascus that killed 44 people, levelled a similar charge over yesterday’s bombing.
“We hold the regime, its agents and its gangs, fully responsible for this crime,” the Brotherhood said in a statement received by AFP in Nicosia.
The US condemned the bombing. “We categorically condemn this attack,” State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters. While she would not say who might have been responsible, Ms Nuland said “we do not think violence of any kind at anybody’s hands is the right answer to the problems in Syria.”
Syrian state media have circulated gruesome images of rescuers gathering body parts and placing them in plastic bags, in an area where damaged cars and buses were splattered with blood. Angry residents shouted and denounced the bombing as the work of “terrorists.”
The December 23 bombings sparked claims and counter-claims over the perpetrator, with the authorities blaming Al-Qaeda and the opposition accusing the regime.
Yesterday saw similar counter-accusations, with the ruling Baath party calling the attacks “a terrorist act that is a part of the plot hatched against Syria,” in a statement broadcast on public television.
The plot, it said, “coincides with the statements made by opposition groups and by French and American officials.”
But the Brotherhood swiftly called for an international and Arab probe, claiming the attack benefited the regime.