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Seven 'Killed in Bombings outside Syrian Interior Ministry'

Explosions outside the Syrian interior ministry, including a car bomb, killed seven people and wounded 50 others on Wednesday, a security official said.

Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar and other top ranking officials escaped unharmed, state television reported.

State news agency SANA said earlier that three bombs struck outside the ministry in the capital's southwestern district of Kfar Sousa, one of them a car bomb.

"Three terrorist explosions, including one caused by a car bomb, struck the interior ministry in Kfar Sousa," SANA said. "Several people were killed and injured."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 25 people were killed and wounded.

Images from the scene broadcast by the pro-government al-Ikhbariya television channel showed piles of rubble, and blood on the ground.

The adjacent building housing the Egyptian embassy was also hit, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.

"An embassy employee was injured, and the building was damaged," MENA quoted Egyptian diplomat Alaa Abdel Aziz as saying.

Several bombings have struck Damascus since an uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule erupted in March last year, among them suicide attacks.

Most blasts have targeted government and security buildings.

Earlier on Wednesday, two bomb attacks killed one person and wounded others in Damascus and a southeastern suburb of the capital, SANA reported.


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