DAMASCUS: Two people were killed and 13 wounded on Thursday after a bomb planted on a minibus exploded in a Syrian town home to Druze and Christian communities near capital Damascus.

At the blast site in the town of Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus, a minibus had its roof blown out, with the chassis wrecked from the inside and debris strewn across the road.

“According to preliminary information... the explosion in the town of Jaramana was caused by a bomb placed” inside a minibus, state TV reported.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.

Since the toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al Assad in Dec 2024, Syria’s new Islamist authorities have sought to exercise full control and restore security.

But the Syrian capital and its suburbs have been the site of multiple attacks and incidents targeting civilians and security forces since they took over.

A photographer saw several ambulances heading to the scene, where a main thoroughfare had been closed to traffic.

The health ministry earlier said that “human remains were being identified and processed by forensic medical teams”, state news agency SANA reported.

The town of Jaramana was affected by sectarian violence last year.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2026