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Seven-year-old girl suicide bomber in Damascus police station blast: State TV

An explosion rocked a south-eastern neighbourhood of Syria’s capital on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Updated on: Dec 16, 2016, 22:42:24 IST
Beirut | By
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An explosion rocked a south-eastern neighbourhood of Syria’s capital on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A blast that rocked a police station in southeast Damascus on Friday was caused by a seven-year-old girl carrying a belt of explosives according to Syrian Media (Representational Photo)
A blast that rocked a police station in southeast Damascus on Friday was caused by a seven-year-old girl carrying a belt of explosives according to Syrian Media (Representational Photo)

Syrian state television said a young girl of about seven years of age blew herself up on Friday in a police station in the Midan neighbourhood of Damascus.

State-run Ikhbariya news channel showed blurred images of what looked like a blackened girl’s head in a blanket, and scenes of destruction inside what it said was the police station.

Although rebel groups have fired rockets and mortar rounds into the capital, explosions inside the city itself are rare.

Syrian state news agency SANA said there were preliminary reports about a “terrorist explosion at the Midan police station in Damascus”.

A witness in the area of the blast told Reuters a young girl entered the police station and, after asking to go to the toilet, blew herself up.

According to pro-government daily Al-Watan, the blast left “the female suicide bomber dead and wounded three police officers from the station”.

In early 2012, a suicide bomber killed 26 people when he blew himself up in Midan.

More than 310,000 people have died since Syria’s conflict broke out in 2011.

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