Islamic State claims responsibility for bombings near Damascus Shi’ite shrine

Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for car and suicide bomb blasts that killed at least eight people and injured scores in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus on Saturday, the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said.

The Sayeda Zeinab suburb contains Syria’s holiest Shi’ite shrine and is a base for Shi’ite militant groups from Lebanon and Iraq who are on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s five-year-old civil war.

Amaq news agency said that in Saturday’s attack, militants detonated an explosives-laden car in Sayeda Zeinab while two suicide bombers blew themselves up nearby. Syrian state media showed footage of wide-scale damage in a busy marketplace.

Source: Reuters