Turkey condemns bomb attack in Damascus

ANKARA

Syrian security forces and locals gather at the scene of a bombing following twin attacks targeting Shiite pilgrims in Damascus' Old City on March 11. / AFP Photo

Turkey has denounced a bomb attack in the Syrian capital Damascus, which targeted religious sites that Shia pilgrims were visiting. 

“We strongly condemn an attack that killed and wounded many people in Syria’s capital, Damascus, which targeted places that are considered sacred by Shia believers,” said a Foreign Ministry statement on March 12. 

Twin bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims killed 59 people in Damascus on March 11, most of them Iraqis, a monitoring group said of one of the bloodiest attacks in the Syrian capital.

A roadside bomb detonated as a bus passed by and a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Bab al-Saghir area, which houses several Shiite mausoleums that draw pilgrims from around the world, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated.

The explosions killed 47 pilgrims, most of them Iraqi Shiites, and 12 Syrian pro-government fighters, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. “There are also dozens of people wounded, some of them in a serious condition,” he told AFP.

Syrian state television said 40 people were killed and 120 wounded after “terrorists detonated two bombs.”