A suicide bomber hit a busy market in Damascus on Tuesday, killing several people and injuring others. Early reports indicate that the suicide bomber targeted a police station but was thwarted by guards. The bomb was detonated in the adjacent vegetable market.
Eight members of the police were included in the casualties, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told BBC News. It is not yet clear if there are civilian deaths and Syria's interior ministry has not confirmed nor identified the total number of people killed.
There are still conflicting reports about the actual death toll. Citing multiple sources in Syria, for instance, there were 3 to 8 fatalities and at least 14 injured in Al Jazeera's latest report. A militant unit of the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, has also declared that the blast killed around 20 people and wounded 40 others, according to the Daily Mail.
The suicide bomber was wearing a police uniform, a well-known tactic used by militants to carry out terrorist attacks. Last month, a militant detonated a bomb near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, which is located in the outskirts of the Syrian capital. The attack killed 71 people, a figure that added to more than 260,000 deaths accumulated since the Syrian conflict started last 2011.
