Six injured in attack on convoy of local Syrian officials: Ministry

Text size

Six people were injured on Wednesday when a roadside explosion hit a convoy carrying local officials, including the governor of southern Syria's Daraa province, the Interior Ministry said.

“Six people were slightly injured” when a roadside bomb “planted by a terrorist group” exploded while local officials were returning “from a working visit” to the east of the province, the ministry said in a statement.

Among the officials in the convoy were the governor of Daraa, a police chief and a local official from the ruling Baath Party, the ministry added, without specifying who was injured in the attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said several police officers were injured in the incident.

Daraa was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but in 2018 the city returned to government control under a Russia-backed ceasefire agreement.

Since then, the southern province has been plagued by unrest, with regular attacks, armed clashes and assassinations, some of which have been claimed by the terrorist group Islamic State.

Former rebels in Daraa province who agreed to the 2018 deal sponsored by Russia, Damascus' main ally, were allowed to keep their light weapons.

The war in Syria has developed into a complex conflict in which foreign armies and jihadists are also drawn in.

More than 500,000 people were killed, millions had to flee their homes and the country's infrastructure and industry were severely damaged.

mom/lg/jsa