Drone strike kills three on Damascus-Homs highway, Syrian sources say

Mixed · 2An explosion inside a car on the Damascus-Homs highway killed people on Monday 26 October 2026, according to Syrian state media. 1 2 Right · 1A Syrian defense source told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that it was a drone strike that killed three people and targeted a car in the Qastal area; the drone's origin was unknown. 2 Right · 1A separate government source told AFP that three people were killed. 2

Right · 1The Defense Ministry source later identified one of the dead as Abu Abdul-Rahman Al-Libi, a commander of Hurras Al-Din, a dissolved Al-Qaeda affiliate; the other two victims had not been identified. 2 Mixed · 2SANA said ambulance and civil defense teams recovered the victims' bodies and that authorities opened an investigation, but it did not give a cause, a death toll or identities. 1 2 Mixed · 2Anadolu placed the blast near Qara in the Damascus countryside and said its cause remained unknown, while AFP's source named the Qastal area; the reports differ on the location. 1 2

Centre · 1Anadolu noted an earlier 6 August explosion aboard a passenger bus in Jaramana, in the Damascus countryside, which killed two people and injured 13, according to a civil defense toll. 1 Right · 1Arab News described Syria's security as fragile since Bashar Assad was overthrown in December 2024, with the interim government facing militant attacks, sectarian tensions and Israeli incursion in the south, and Daesh cells still active. 2