ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least one person was killed and more than 30 injured when two explosions hit central Damascus on Tuesday, Syrian officials said, adding that the devices were planted minutes before the blasts, which attempted to target the security cordon protecting French President Emmanuel Macron, who arrived the previous night on an official visit.
The attempted attack was carried out using "improvised explosive devices that were planted near the security cordon… only minutes before the explosion," Syrian interior ministry Spokesperson Noureddine al-Baba told reporters, including Rudaw's Solin Mohammedamin, near the site of the attack, adding that the perpetrators were unable to breach Macron's cordon.
Baba added that the "malicious" assault was "intended to target the Syrian-French relationship and negatively affect the French [president's] visit," adding that "links to the perpetrators" had been uncovered.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on Tuesday cited Damascus health directorate director Wael Daghmash as saying the attack resulted in "one person being killed and 31 others injured," including "four who require surgical operations and one who remains in critical condition."
An eyewitness, Bahjat Hassan, told Rudaw that people "heard a loud blast and ran outside to find flames rising." Another eyewitness, Omar Barzanji, said "after the first explosion, people and police gathered; then the second explosion happened and caused casualties."
Macron arrived in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Monday, marking the first visit by a Western head of state since the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, and the first by a French president since Nicolas Sarkozy (2007 - 2012) visited in 2009, two years before the eruption of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Following the twin bomb attacks, the French president said during a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa, "We must not let ourselves be destabilized" by such attacks, reiterating his country's support for Syria.
Of note, later on Tuesday, Macron shared a video on his X account showing antiquities he returned to Syria that had been loaned to France before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
"France has safeguarded Syrian archaeological treasures for years of war, to protect them from destruction and trafficking," the French leader said in the same post, adding that he is "very proud to bring them back to Damascus."
The French presidency had earlier explained that the 23 objects were "loaned to the Arab World Institute in 2010 and which, for obvious reasons, were not able to be returned to Syria."
The artifacts were returned to the National Museum of Damascus and span a period from prehistory through the Abbasid era, including items from the Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad civilizations, the presidency said.
