‘Huge’ explosion near Damascus airport in Syria, says monitor | World News - Hindustan Times
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‘Huge’ explosion near Damascus airport in Syria, says monitor

Agencies, Beirut | By
Apr 27, 2017 10:07 AM IST

The blast struck near Damascus airport in Syria in the early hours of Thursday.

A massive explosion hit near the Damascus International Airport in the early hours of Thursday morning, a monitoring group said, without specifying the cause.

An explosion hit near the Damascus airport on Thursday.(AFP Photo)
An explosion hit near the Damascus airport on Thursday.(AFP Photo)

“The blast was huge and could be heard in Damascus,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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The Damascus International Airport lies about 25 kilometres southeast of Syria’s capital.

The Britain-based Observatory, which gathers information from sources across war-ravaged Syria, said it had confirmed the explosion had not taken place inside the airport itself.

“It’s unclear what caused the explosion, but there fires raging at the site,” Rahman told AFP.

The dawn explosion has also been reported by other activists’ networks but the source was unclear.

Activist-operated Dairy of a Mortar, which reports from Damascus, says the explosion near the airport road was followed by flames rising above the area. A pro-government site Damascus Now says the explosion was near the city’s Seventh Bridge, which leads to the airport road.

More than 320,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011 with widespread anti-government protests.

While Damascus has remained relatively insulated from the violence, fierce fighting has raged on the outskirts of the capital in recent months between rebel groups and government forces.

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