At least 20 killed in Damascus bombing

A car bomb killed 20 people in Damascus on Sunday and wounded dozens more, the Syrian foreign ministry said, the first such bombing in the Syrian capital since a series of suicide attacks in March.

The authorities said it was one of three car bombs that were meant to be blown up in crowded areas of the capital on Sunday, the first day back to work from the Eid al-Fitr holiday. Security forces pursued and destroyed the other two.

Officials said the bombers had been prevented from reaching their intended targets, otherwise the casualty toll would have been higher. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

TRT World's Yasin Eken reports from Gaziantep on Turkey's border with Syria.

Footage broadcast by local TV from Tahrir Square showed roads scattered with debris, several badly damaged cars, and another one that had been turned into a pile of twisted metal.

In March, two suicide bomb attacks in Damascus killed several dozen people, most of them at the Palace of Justice courthouse near the Old City. Daesh claimed responsibility for that attack.

Also in March, a double suicide attack in the capital killed scores of people, most of them Iraqi Shia pilgrims.

That attack was claimed by the Tahrir al-Sham alliance of insurgents, which is spearheaded by a militant group formerly known as the Nusra Front.

Syrian regime forces, which have defeated rebel fighters in several suburbs of Damascus over the last year, are currently battling insurgents in the Jobar and Ain Tarma areas on the capital's eastern outskirts.