Damascus Bombs Wound Eighteen During Macron’s Visit
Two explosive devices — one in a rubbish bin, one in a parked car — detonated in central Damascus near the hotel where President Macron is staying, wounding at least 18 people including four police officers. Macron, the first major Western leader to visit Syria since President Sharaa took power, was inside the presidential palace at the time; the Élysée said his meeting continued as scheduled and his economic delegation’s programme goes ahead. No group has claimed the attack.
Twice in a week now, bombs have gone off at the symbolic heart of Syria’s transition — first beside the courts trying Assad-era officials, now within blast-hearing of a visiting Western president carrying investment memoranda. Whoever is responsible is aiming at the normalisation process itself, and the harder Damascus leans into Western re-engagement, the more such attacks are worth to its enemies. Macron travels on to Ankara, where Sharaa meets Trump tomorrow — a meeting these blasts were perhaps meant to poison. Watch for attribution, whether the memoranda were signed, and how Sharaa’s security services respond to a second failure in a week.