27/11/2013 16:54
15 dead, 40 others injured in Damascus terrorist attack
A terrorist attack in the area of As-Soumariya bus station, west of Damascus, has claimed 15 lives, while some 40 other people are reported injured, the Voice of Russia reported.
According to a doctor of the Muassar city hospital, the condition of some 30 of the injured is grave. Some have had their limbs cut off; others are suffering from penetrating wounds of abdominal cavity, head or vertebral column injuries.
A suicide bomber is said to have set off a car bomb. The explosive device wasn't large, - the reason why it wasn't detected by car remote control scanners, yet the nearby pedestrian overpass with travelling stairs was badly damaged, with the debris covering dozens of metres around ground zero.
Some reparations have already been made, but how much it will take to repair the overpass is anyone's guess.
As-Soumariya is a key transportation hub; - it's the terminus of several bus routes and a place to change to interurban services at. The frontline is just several hundred metres away, and it's there that government army units are deployed to block the armed gangs of rebels in the west of Damascus.
According to reports from Syria, the government troops checked the enemy counteroffensive at the southern approach to Damascus. Following bitter fighting in the last 72 hours, involving aircraft and heavy ordnance, the enemy has been driven away from the strategically important city of Al-Outeiba, at the entry to East Gouta, - the green belt in the environs of the capital city.