Syria

Syrian General, 8 soldiers killed in terrorist bomb attack

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A Syrian general and eight troops have been killed in a militant bombing attack outside the capital city Damascus, says a UK-based monitoring group.

According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday, the government forces were killed when an explosive device planted by militants went off in a tunnel in the town of Harasta, located to the northeast of the capital.

“The explosion killed a Syrian officer at the rank of general, and eight other members of the government forces, and wounded several people,” said the director of the observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman.

He noted that the death toll would probably rise as a number of the wounded were in critical condition and that 15 people were still unaccounted for.

Syria has been fighting foreign-sponsored militancy over the past almost six years. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated in August last year that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the Syrian crisis until then. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.

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