Three explosions killed 45 people Sunday in a suburb near the Syrian capital of Damascus, state media reported.
“Terrorists” detonated a car bomb at a bus terminal, followed shortly by two suicide bombings that targeted onlookers and medics at the scene of the initial attack, an Interior Ministry official told SANA, the Syria state news agency.
The blasts injured 40 others in Sayeda Zeynab, according to the news agency. The suburb is named after an important Shiite mosque.
“The aim of this cowardly and desperate terrorist attack is to raise the morale of the defeated terrorist groups following the great victories that our brave army has accomplished in several areas,” Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi told SANA.
The attack happened while representatives from President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the main Syrian opposition are in Geneva, Switzerland, for talks aimed at ending the country’s civil war.