Damascus car bomb kills army liaison with Hezbollah: monitor

A car bomb killed a Syrian officer working with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Damascus Saturday, a war monitor said, with state media reporting one dead without identifying the victim.

Bombings targeting military and civilian vehicles, still occur intermittently in the Syrian capital more than 12 years into a devastating civil war.

"A Syrian army officer who worked closely with Hezbollah was killed after an explosive device detonated in his car in Damascus," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The officer hailed from the eastern province of Deir Ezzor province and was tasked with recruiting Syrian fighters for Hezbollah, Abdel Rahman said.

State news agency SANA said "one person was killed when an explosive device detonated in a car," in the upscale Mazzeh district, which houses embassies and UN offices.

It did not provide any other details.

The explosion came with regional tensions running high as Israel fights a devastating war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A similar car bombing hit Mazzeh last month without causing any casualties.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli military since the Palestinian group's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza.

Israel has mounted hundreds of air strikes against Hezbollah and other Iran-backed targets in Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011.

The war has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions more.