Dozens killed in suicide attacks on Syrian uprising anniversary

BEIRUT — Suicide bombers killed dozens of people in the Syrian capital on Wednesday, the sixth anniversary of anti-government protests that devolved into one of the deadliest wars of the century.

Syrian state media said a first attacker detonated his explosives outside the largest courthouse in Damascus, known as the Justice Palace. Hours later, it reported that a second bomber had attacked a restaurant in the city’s Rabweh district, killing several people.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, put the death toll at 39, with more than 100 wounded.

Once the site of an Ottoman-era barracks, the Justice Palace is blocks from the labyrinthine Hamidiyeh Bazaar, where wildcat protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule began in 2011, before a fierce government crackdown turned the uprising into all-out war.

 

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of AFP