Reuters. French President Emmanuel Macron met on Tuesday (July 7) with his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus after blasts rocked Syria's capital.
Two bombs exploded near a hotel in Damascus where Macron had spent the night, but his office said he did not hear the explosions.
Syrian authorities said 18 people were wounded by the blasts, overshadowing the first visit to Syria by a European Union head of state since Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad in 2024, and underlining continued security threats in the country.
The explosions struck a busy area between the Syrian Tourism Ministry and the national museum across the street from the Four Seasons hotel, where a source in Macron's delegation and Syrian security sources said he had spent the night and had met civil society groups on Tuesday morning.
The first blast hit soon after Macron's motorcade left for the presidential palace. The second blast went off next to an ambulance parked at the scene, where some two dozen people had gathered.
