Damascus home hit by Katyusha rockets launched from outskirts of Syria capital; 1 hurt

DAMASCUS, Syria — Rockets were fired at a home in Syria’s capital on Friday night, wounding several people and causing damage, state media reported.

It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the rocket attack in Damascus’s western neighborhood of Mazzeh 86.

The Syrian Defense Ministry said in a statement that two Katyusha rockets were launched from the outskirts of the city toward residential neighborhoods in the Mazzeh area.

An official told the SANA news agency that “the treacherous assault on areas of Damascus was carried out using missiles launched from a mobile platform.”

An Associated Press journalist at the scene said that security forces cordoned off the area and prevented anyone from getting close to the building that was struck. Journalists were later allowed in to film the damaged building.

State television reported that one woman was wounded in the blast, which was caused by an attack by “unknown assailants,” adding that security forces were investigating. The defense ministry statement later said that “a number of people” were injured without giving more details.

During Syria’s 14-year civil war, explosions and bombings in Damascus were not uncommon, but since the ouster of President Bashar Assad’s government in December last year by insurgents who took over his seat of power, calm has largely prevailed.

A rocket attack in the capital is highly unusual, but there have been other attacks since Assad’s fall, including a suicide bombing that targeted a church on the outskirts of Damascus in June.

After the Assad regime fell, Israel launched an aerial campaign against Syrian military targets to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of extremist groups and seized parts of Mount Hermon in Syrian territory that was a buffer zone between the countries following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but has not struck the capital in recent months.