One Syrian soldier was killed and at least 18 people were wounded by a car bomb that exploded on Tuesday outside a defence ministry building in Damascus, authorities said.
Soldiers had discovered a different bomb near the building in the capital's Bab Sharqi district and were trying to dismantle it when the car bomb went off nearby, the ministry said in a statement carried by state media.
The head of Syria's ambulance and emergency directorate, Najib al-Nassan, told state-owned agency SANA that 18 wounded people had been taken to hospitals after the explosion.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
In June last year, an explosion in a Damascus church killed 25 people. Little-known Sunni extremist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack, while authorities blamed the Islamic State group.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)
