At least 30 dead in bombings south of Damascus

DAMASCUS: At least 30 people were killed Sunday in a series of attacks, including a car bombing, near a Shia shrine south of Syria's capital, state television and a monitor said.

The Syrian state broadcaster said a car bombing and two suicide attacks ripped through the area of the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, killing 30 and wounding dozens.

"The attacks came as pupils were leaving school, and several of them were killed," the state broadcaster reported.



The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group gave a slightly higher death toll of 31 and said there were four attacks.

"There was a car bomb and two suicide bombers who blew themselves up. We don't know the cause of the fourth explosion," the Britain-based Observatory said.

At the end of January, the Islamic State group said it was behind bombings near the shrine that killed 71 people, among them five children.

The Sayyida Zeinab shrine contains the grave of a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed and is particularly revered as a pilgrimage site by Shia Muslims.