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