Six killed in car bombing in Syrian capital

ISIS has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in the southern suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on 25 April in which at least six people died. The death toll is expected to rise because a number of people were seriously injured. The attack took place near an army checkpoint, which had recently been targeted, killing 70 people. In February, the area was hit when ISIS carried out multiple explosions. The neighbourhood is majority Shia, and is located near Sayyida Zeinab, the country’s holiest Shia shrine.

A car bomb in a district south of Damascus killed at least six people and possibly many more on Monday, according to ISIS militants who claimed responsibility for the attack.

The ultra-hardline Sunni group's attack near a Syrian army checkpoint had killed or injured 48 people, a news agency close to the militants said.

Lebanese group Hezbollah's Al Manar television reported the blast was at an army checkpoint and put the death toll at eight.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said eight people had been killed and the toll was expected to rise because of the number of people with serious injuries.

State media said the bombing was on the outskirts of Sayyida Zeinab, home to Syria's holiest Shia Muslim shrine.

The area has already been hit by two bomb attacks this year. Multiple explosions in February killed scores of people in one of the bloodiest attacks in that area in Syria's five-year conflict, and an ISIS suicide attack there less than a month earlier killed 70 people.

The bomb struck the Sayyida Zeinab district, which is a suburb south of Damascus. (CBC)

Syrian government negotiator Bashar Ja'afari said Monday's blast "that four terrorists carried out" had hit a hospital, killing some patients evacuated last week from two rebel-besieged towns in the northwestern province of Idlib.

Separately, rebel shelling of government-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 18 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syrian aerial bombing has killed dozens of civilians in Aleppo's residential area of Bustan al Qasr and areas under the control of rebels in the last few days, it said.

The government says it is planning a campaign to take areas of Aleppo under rebel control and to cut off their only remaining route into the city.