Damascus, December 03: An explosion that wrecked an Iranian bus in Damascus on Thursday and killed three people was caused by a tyre exploding as it was being repaired, Interior Minister Saeed Sammur said.
“It is not a terrorist act,” Sammur told journalists at the scene. “It happened while one of the empty bus’s tyres was being repaired. An explosion took place as result of the excessive pressure.
“Two workers who were repairing the tyre and the bus’s driver, who was standing near them, were killed in the explosion.”
The blast tore through an Iranian bus near a Shiite shrine in Syria’s capital, television stations reported.
The explosion happened near a Shiite shrine in the Sayeda Zeinab district of Damascus, which draws tens of thousands of pilgrims from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon each year.
Iran’s state television reporter in Damascus said the bus exploded while it was refuelling at a petrol station.
The reporter said the pilgrims had alighted from the bus from the Iranian city of Ardebil.
Witnesses reported ambulances and fire engines racing to the scene, which was cordoned off by police.
A photographer at the site said most of the damage was at the back of the bus, with parts of the vehicle scattered over a wide distance.
Bomb attacks are rare in Syria, a country known for its security.
—Agencies