DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Mourners filed through Damascus on Friday, a day after an explosive device set off in a cafe in the Syrian capital killed nine people.
The funeral procession in the normally bustling Midan neighborhood carried the coffins of three of the blast victims. Another 20 were wounded in the explosion at a popular cafe near the capital's main judicial complex, which was often frequented by lawyers.
Syrian officials have promised to arrest
those behind the attack, but no updates were announced in the investigation. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Bahaa Qabbani said his brother, Fathi Qabbani, a married father of one son, worked at a shop near the site of the explosion and was passing by the cafe at the moment of the blast. He was killed.
Qabbani called the perpetrators of the attack “a group of terrorists who are against the homeland,” and called on the country's security forces to “take hold of the country with an iron fist."
Also Friday, Syria's state-run news agency SANA reported that three members of security forces were wounded in an attack on a checkpoint at the entrance to the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. It said that a man on a motorcycle threw two hand grenades at the checkpoint guards and tried to throw a third one, but it exploded in his hand, killing him.
Another person was arrested in connection with the attack, SANA reported.
Since overthrowing the Assad dynasty and taking power in a lightning insurgency in December 2024, Syria’s new rulers have struggled to exert control across the country and to check extremist groups.
Deadly attacks blamed on the Islamic State group have targeted religious minorities, including a suicide attack on a church in a Damascus suburb and a bomb set off in a mosque in a predominantly Alawite area in the city of Homs.
