Eleven soldiers were killed and nine wounded after an ammunition blast struck a Syrian army position in the town of Ayyash, in western Deir Az Zor, the defence ministry said. The ministry, cited by the official SANA news agency, said the explosion hit a weapons cache at the site.
The army held a funeral procession on Saturday for the dead, videos broadcast on state channel Al Ikhbiriya showed. Images from outside the National Hospital in Deir Az Zor city showed bodies draped in Syrian flags as mourners carried coffins. Al Ikhbiriya reported the soldiers died while transporting heavy ammunition at the location.
Local provincial officials said an investigation is under way and the cause of the blast has not been determined. The provincial government released the casualty figures for the wounded, and the defence ministry has not publicly assigned blame for the incident.
Wednesday’s explosion was the second accident at a military site in under two weeks, underlining a recent pattern of munitions incidents. On September 9 an explosion at a temporary weapons and war-remnants depot in Sarmada, in Idlib province, killed 14 soldiers and wounded more than 10 people, including some civilians, the Syrian Defence Ministry said. That ministry also said it accepted responsibility for the Sarmada blast and described the depot as a collection point for weapons and munitions left over from Syria’s civil war pending transfer under standard procedures.
Syrian emergency management minister Raed al-Saleh told the local outlet Enab Baladi that his ministry is coordinating with other government bodies to keep such storage locations clear of civilians, but he acknowledged some sites are difficult to fully secure because civilians collect abandoned munitions. Earlier incidents include a September 1 vehicle explosion in Binnish, also in Idlib, which state media said killed five people and injured others.
Authorities say they are working to clear vast stockpiles of weapons and munitions left after more than a decade of war, and officials have opened investigations into the latest blast as they continue those removal and storage efforts.
