Zürcher Nachrichten - Bomb attacks wound 18 in Damascus as Macron visits

The president was not inside the hotel when the blasts hit, having already left for Syria's presidential palace, where an AFP team saw him arrive for a meeting with counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa.

AFP journalists heard at least one blast echo through Damascus before seeing a plume of smoke rising near the Four Seasons Hotel, with security forces closing a road and ambulances rushing to the scene.

Syria's interior ministry said one bomb had been placed inside a car parked on the side of a road, while the second was planted in a garbage container.

It said they exploded "while preparations were underway" to dismantle them.

The blasts wounded 18 people, including four police officers, Syrian state media said.

The French president, the first Western European leader to visit Syria since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024, would continue his trip, France's Elysee Palace said.

An AFP photographer near Syria's tourism ministry, opposite the hotel, saw windows damaged by one of the explosions, amid a heavy security presence.

"I saw three traffic police officers injured on the ground, before the area was evacuated and the roads leading to it were closed," Hamam Hammoud, a 37-year-old employee at a money exchange company, told AFP.

The blasts came moments before Syrian state television announced Macron's arrival at the palace.

Macron is meeting with Sharaa to discuss post-war reconstruction of Syria and reiterate his call for "unity" and "plurality", having also met with civil society representatives.

- Economic reboot -

The explosions are the second in the Syrian capital since Thursday, when 10 people were killed in a bombing in a Damascus cafe.

The French president had postponed announcing the date of his visit until his plane landed on Monday, for security reasons.

After the meeting with Sharaa, Macron was scheduled to take part in an "economic forum focusing on Syria's reconstruction and strategic corridors".

He is being accompanied by several key economic players including Rodolphe Saade, chief executive of maritime transport giant CMA CGM, and TotalEnergies head Patrick Pouyanne.

The last French president to visit Syria was Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, before Assad brutally crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011, sparking a conflict that killed more than half a million people and devastated the country's infrastructure and industry.

In May 2025, Macron hosted Sharaa in France on his first official visit to a European country, a move that preceded the Syrian leader's trip to Washington last year to meet US President Donald Trump.

Sharaa has been attempting to reboot Syria's international credentials and revive its struggling economy after toppling Assad in December 2024.

But the deadly bombing at the Damascus cafe last week was the latest security challenge for the new Islamist authorities as they try to reunify the country after more than 13 years of civil war.

Another topic for Macron will be the fight against the jihadist Islamic State group and the ongoing presence of a handful of French jihadists on Syrian soil.

Syria joined the international anti-IS coalition last year.

The French president is also eager for Sharaa to maintain his pledge to protect Syria's minorities, after sectarian bloodshed in its Alawite and Druze heartlands last year.

Macron is to travel on to Ankara on Tuesday evening for a NATO summit, and will hold talks there the following day with Turkey's president.

L.Rossi--NZN