Syria: Car Bomb Timed To Detonate In Christian Quarter Of Damascus As People Were Travelling To Church, 10 Killed

By Ruth Sherlock, The Telegraph – “A car bomb exploded outside a police station in the Old City of Damascus on Sunday, drawing the city’s historical Christian quarter into the civil war.

Up to 10 people were killed and 15 wounded as the charge detonated at the historical gate of Bab Touma, a busy pick up point for taxis and buses.

‘The bomb exploded as people were moving to go to Churches for Sunday mass. It exploded just outside the police station. There was a bus stop right beside it,’ said a resident calling himself George who works in a hotel just a few streets away from the explosion. ‘I felt the explosion. The ground beneath me shook and I can see black smoke rising from the area.

‘Terrorists are doing this,’ said George, a Christian who, like many residents in Bab Touma lives in fear of the rebel fighters trying to gain control of the capital.

Encircled by thick rock historic city walls, the narrow alleyways and wooden roofed Damascene homes of the Old City had thus far remained largely insulated from the fighting that has reached the capital in recent months…

The bomb detonated as UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.” Read more.

Flashback: Syria: Entire Christian Family Beheaded By Suspected Islamists In Damascus – “As reported by Fides sources in Damascus, the Christians in the suburbs of Jaramana (south-west of Damascus) and Zamalka (South-East of the city) are under pressure from armed groups jiahdisti and are terrified. Today in Zamalka a family of Armenian Christians was found murdered, and all members of the family horribly decapitated. The execution brings to mind the work of radical Islamist Salafis.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Deliberate and Growing’: Christian Persecution From ‘Arab Spring’ Insurgents in Syria Becoming a Steadily Growing Reality, ‘It Will Never Be the Same Anymore’ – “Refugees who have fled to Jordan from Syria are telling mission leaders supported by Christian Aid Mission about deliberate, new persecution from the ‘Arab Spring’ insurgents who are seeking to overthrow the brutal Assad regime in Damascus. Nearly 100,000 Christians so far have fled from Homs and other cities being targeted by government forces, but it is no longer just to escape the crossfire. Now, more reports are revealing that a new wave of persecution is deliberate and growing… ‘It is over; we can’t get back what we lost … It will never be the same anymore for me or my family.’” Read more.