{"id":29882,"date":"2019-01-20T10:22:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T10:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29882"},"modified":"2019-01-20T10:22:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T10:22:58","slug":"huge-explosion-in-syria-capital-leaves-several-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29882","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Huge explosion\u2019 in Syria capital leaves several dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1438541\/middle-east\" readability=\"50\">\n<p>\nA &#8220;huge explosion&#8221; near a military intelligence office in Damascus Sunday left a number of dead and wounded, a war monitor said, after state TV reported early indications suggested a &#8220;terrorist act&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Syrian Observatory later confirmed that at least three civilians had been killed in the blast.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;The explosion took place near a security branch in the south of the city. There are some people killed and injured but we could not verify the toll immediately,&#8221; the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.<br \/>It was unclear if the blast was caused by a bomb that was planted or a suicide attack, according to the monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside the country.<br \/>It said that shooting followed the explosion.<br \/>Syrian state television earlier reported that a blast had been heard around the southern highway in Damascus.<br \/>&#8220;First reports suggest a terrorist act,&#8221; the broadcaster said.<br \/>The state outlet did not provide any more details on the incident.<br \/>Syria is locked in a civil war that has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011 spiralled into full conflict.<br \/>With key military backing from Russia, President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s forces have retaken large parts of Syria from rebels and jihadists, and now control almost two-thirds of the country.<br \/>The Syrian regime in May reclaimed a final scrap of territory held by the Islamic State group in southern Damascus, cementing total control over the capital for the first time in six years.<br \/>Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said that Sunday&#8217;s blast appeared to be the first attack in Damascus in over a year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A &#8220;huge explosion&#8221; near a military intelligence office in Damascus Sunday left a number of dead and wounded, a war monitor said, after state TV reported early indications suggested a &#8220;terrorist act&#8221;. The Syrian Observatory later confirmed that at least three civilians had been killed in the blast. &#8220;The explosion took place near a security&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}