Damascus Cafe Bomb Toll Rises to Nine as IS Suspected
Nine people are now known to have died, with twenty wounded, after a bomb packed with metal shrapnel exploded in a crowded cafe near Damascus’s Palace of Justice on Thursday. No group has claimed the attack; officials suspect Islamic State sleeper cells, which have declared a “new phase” of operations against President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government. Jordan, Qatar, Egypt and Iraq condemned the bombing, the most serious security breach in central Damascus since the transition began.
The location matters: forty metres from the courthouse where Assad-era officials are being tried, in the heart of a capital the new government holds up as proof it can deliver order. It follows a May car bomb outside the defence ministry, and fits Islamic State’s stated strategy of undermining the transition through urban attacks rather than territorial confrontation. Syria’s normalisation track — including an openness to meeting Hezbollah signalled in Beirut this week — depends on the state appearing in control. Watch for attribution, arrests, and whether regional reconstruction pledges hold firm.