10 die in Damascus police station blast

2012-10-21 15:57

(Supplied)

Beirut - A car bomb exploded outside a police station in a Christian quarter of Damascus on Sunday, killing 10 people, monitors said, while a similar attack struck Syria's second city of Aleppo.

"Ten people were killed and 15 others wounded when a car bomb exploded in the Bab Tuma square in front of the police station," in the capital's Old City, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The official news agency Sana said it had been "an explosive device planted under a car in the courtyard of Bab Tuma by an armed terrorist group."

It caused significant damage, state television said.

It was the first such attack in Bab Tuma, one of the oldest quarters of the capital, since an anti-regime revolt broke out in March 2011, costing 34 000 lives nationwide, according to the Observatory.

A large part of Syria's Christian community backs President Bashar al-Assad, fearful of the influence of Islamists in the revolt.

Sana also reported that a number of "terrorists" were killed when a bomb they had planted by a mosque in the Assali district of southern Damascus exploded prematurely.

The Observatory reported fierce clashes between the army and rebels in Assali, and that the bodies of two men were found shot dead in the nearby neighbourhood of Qaboon.

- AFP