At Least 30 Killed in Damascus Air Strike

Rebels Claim Much Higher Death Tolls as Gas Station Bombed

Syrian warplanes struck a gas station in the Damascus suburb of Mulelha today, killing at least 30 people according to witnesses at the site. The cause of the strike was unclear, as Mulelha is not generally a rebel stronghold, and has not been targeted in the past.

Syrian state media has yet to comment on the incident at all, while rebels have reported dramatically higher death tolls, with some reporting over 70 dead and scores of others wounded in a single missile strike.

It is difficult to break down the exact tolls of dead and wounded, particularly when an explosion scatters destruction across a fairly wide area, but the station was believed to have just received a shipment of petrol before the strike, making it particularly crowded with drivers.

Some rebel statements also claimed that the majority of the slain were children, though why there would be such a large number of children around a crowded petrol station is unclear, and other statements made no such claims.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.