A suicide car bomb has exploded in the main business district of Damascus, killing at least 15 people, setting cars ablaze and damaging buildings, according to state television.
A Damascus resident described the blast as the biggest she had heard in the capital during the two-year-old revolt against Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad. She said large plumes of black smoke were rising from the Sabaa Bahrat district.
State television said the explosion occurred near a school in Sabaa Bahrat, a heavily populated area that also houses the central bank and the finance ministry. It said 53 people were wounded.
It showed footage of seven bodies in the street, including at least two charred corpses in the wreckage of an overturned bus. The fire brigade was dousing flames from cars crushed by the blast. Other vehicles were still on fire in what appeared to be a car park.Men carried away a woman on a stretcher, her face covered in blood. Panic-stricken women in long black dresses and headscarves ran towards the scene. State television showed some bandaged children in school uniform.
