At Least 7 Children Killed in Bombing in Southern Syria

A roadside bomb detonated in the southwestern Syrian province of Daraa on Saturday, killing at least seven children and injuring at least two others, state media and a UK-based war monitor confirmed.

No group has taken responsibility for the attack, and some of the different actors involved in the region have since assigned blame to different groups, leaving it unclear who exactly was responsible for the bombing.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization reporting on the war, indicated that the bombing was an assassination attempt executed by government-aligned militias.

Citing a Daraa police officer familiar with the situation, Syria’s state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported that anti-government insurgents were likely behind the bombing.

Violence in Daraa province has left more than a hundred people dead since the start of the new year. The area, which was captured by Russia-backed pro-Assad forces in 2018, remains a hotbed of conflict and extremism despite Moscow’s efforts to negotiate a cease-fire that would leave certain insurgent groups responsible for security administration in select areas.

Daraa’s location, straddling the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Jordan, is of strategic importance to all the actors involved in the region. Jerusalem reportedly made it clear to the Russian leadership that an influx of Iran-backed militias into the province was unacceptable, leaving Moscow responsible for maintaining the delicate security balance in the area.