On Saturday, the cities of Aleppo and Damascus witnessed two prominent security incidents. The first was a hand grenade explosion in a popular market in the north of the country, while the Syrian Ministry of Interior announced the dismantling of a cell that it said was linked to “Hezbollah” and was planning to target a religious figure in the capital.
The Syrian News Channel reported that a number of civilians were injured as a result of someone throwing a hand grenade in the vegetable market in the Sukari neighborhood in Aleppo. Al Jazeera’s “Syria Now” platform reported that the incident resulted in the injury of three people, including a woman and a child, while the Internal Security Forces began pursuing the perpetrator to arrest him. Until now, there is no information available about his fate or the motives behind this attack.
In a separate context, the Syrian Ministry of Interior announced the arrest of five people linked to a plan to target a religious figure in Damascus, and indicated that the cell “is linked to the Lebanese Hezbollah.” The Ministry explained in a statement that it had spotted a woman trying to “carry out an act of sabotage by planting an explosive device in front of the house of a religious figure in the vicinity of the Marian Church in the Bab Touma area,” and confirmed that security forces intervened, dismantled the device, and arrested all members of the cell.
Later, the Syrian News Agency quoted an official source in the Damascus Countryside Media Directorate as saying that the plan was targeting Rabbi Michael Houri in Damascus. The ministry added that investigations revealed “the cell’s connection to the Lebanese Hezbollah, and that its members received specialized military training outside the country, including skills in planting explosive devices.”
