Syria: 16 killed in Damascus bomb attacks

At least 16 people have been killed following two separate bomb attacks in Syria.

Eight died and at least 50 more people were injured in a blast at the entrance of a landmark Ottoman railway building in Syria's capital Damascus, according to state news agency Sana.

State TV broadcast images showing several wounded people walking away from railway authority, passing apartment buildings and shops with their windows blown out. Part of the railway building's wooden roof was shattered.

And another eight were killed after a suicide car bomb smashed into the entrance of an air force intelligence agency in the southeast city of Sweida, activists said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a high-ranking officer was killed, and the others who died belonged to the security agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but rebels tied to al-Qaida have previously claimed bombings of security institutions and have also targeted the centre of the capital.

The blast in Sweida was a rare attack targeting a city dominated by Druse, a small, secretive Muslim sect who have mostly stayed on the sidelines of the Syrian war.