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Twin bombings in Damascus kill at least 40 Shi’ite pilgrims

While Iraq’s Foreign Ministry counted 40 fatalities in twin bomb attacks in Damascus on Saturday, Syria’s Observatory for Human Rights tallied at least 46 deaths. 

A double bomb attack in Syria’s capital city of Damascus killed at least 40 Iraqi Shi’ite pilgrims and wounded approximately 12o, according to Iraq’s Foreign Ministry.

The attack occurred at a bus station where the pilgrims traveled to visit the nearby Bab al-Saghir cemetery after reportedly visiting the Sayeda Zeinab shrine just outside Damascus. Zeinab, the granddaughter of the Islamic Prophet Mohammad, is a figure of significant prominence for Shi’ite Muslims.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that one of the explosions was caused by a roadside bomb that detonated as a bus passed, and another by a suicide bomber. The monitoring group said that 46 were killed and also confirmed that most of them were Iraqi.

“There are also dozens of people wounded, some of them in a serious condition,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News