Blast rocks district of Damascus, 5 killed

About five government troops were killed and others injured when a booby-trapped motorcycle ripped through the Damascus neighborhood of Ruken Addien on Friday, the state-TV said. The TV said the "terrorist" blast went off while the worshipers were exiting the Ruknieh mosque in Ruken Addien area. There has been no immediate word on the casualties by the blast, the latest in an ongoing series of violent acts that recently engulfed the capital Damascus and its suburbs. Meanwhile a car bomb went off just in front of the courthouse and the Information Ministry in Syrian capital Damascus' district of Mazzeh on Friday, witnesses and the state TV said. The car went off between the courthouse and the Ministry building on the al-Mazzeh highway in Damascus, said the TV. The pro-government al-Ekhbaria TV said the blast, caused by an explosive device affixed under a car, left only material damages to the parked cars. The TV aired live broadcast from the battered area, showing a number of destroyed and charred cars as well as smashed windows of the surrounding buildings. The firefighters are franticly working to extinguish the fire that has sent large plume of dark smoke in the sky. The blast site is also some 100 meters away from a branch of political intelligence. The explosion is the second to hit the Syrian capital within hours, after a booby-trapped motorcycle went off earlier in the day in Rukin Addien area in Damascus, killing six government soldiers and civilians In another incident Friday, several shells slammed into the streets of the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus on Friday, causing casualties, the state TV said. The TV said the armed men also fired at the ambulances that rushed to the scene to transport the injured, adding that a Syrian army unit is currently tracking down the armed men. The Yarmouk camp is flanked by two hotspots of violence, the Tadamun area and Hajar al-Aswad. Both areas have been witnessing armed confrontations between the Syrian army and insurgent groups. Dozens of Palestinian refugees in Syria had been reportedly killed in the chaos that rattled the capital. In separate accounts, the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) said intense clashes are taking place between the Syrian troops and the rebels of the Free Syrian Army in the Daf al-Shouk and al- Tadamun areas in Damascus, adding that the clashes have coupled with violent shelling on Daf al-Shouk. The LCC said 55 people had been killed on Friday nationwide, Yet their claim cannot be independently verified.