Syria bus bombing wounds 15 police officers

A bomb attack on a bus carrying Syrian police wounded 15 officers in the south of the war-torn country on Monday, the interior ministry said.

The police had been returning from a mission in the southern province of Daraa when "unidentified terrorists targeted their bus with an explosive device", the ministry said in a statement.

Seven of the 15 wounded suffered serious injuries, the statement added.

Daraa was the cradle of Syria's 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but it returned to Damascus's control in 2018 under a reconciliation deal backed by Russia.

The province has been wracked by violence for years.

The Islamic State group, whose third leader was killed in Daraa in October, sometimes claims responsibility for attacks in the region.

The Syrian conflict, which was triggered by the suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has claimed around 500,000 lives and displaced around half the country's pre-war population.