In Damascus, a car bomb explodes, in a context of strong regional tensions

A car bomb exploded on Saturday April 13 in an upscale neighborhood housing the Iranian consulate and embassy as well as other foreign missions, and did not cause any casualties, said the official Syrian press agency. SANA, citing a source from the Damascus police command. “The explosion heard recently in the Mazzeh district was due to the detonation of an explosive device in a car in Al-Houda Square”, specifies SANA. It was not immediately possible to determine who was responsible for the explosion, nor who was targeted.

This explosion comes in a context of heightened regional tensions, with Iran having promised to respond to an attack attributed to Israel which destroyed, on 1^er April, its consulate in Damascus, killing seven members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran’s ideological army. Two high-ranking officers are among the victims. Tehran and Damascus blamed the attack on Israel, which has not confirmed its involvement but remains considered responsible, including by its own allies.

These tensions are part of the context of the war between Israel and Hamas, triggered on October 7, 2023 by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement against the Jewish state, which launched a vast military operation in the Strip in retaliation. Gaza.