Macron in Damascus: twin blasts wound 18 during historic Syria visit
Two improvised bombs exploded near Emmanuel Macron's Damascus hotel, wounding 18 people, during the first official visit by a Western leader to post-Assad Syria.
Emmanuel Macron came away unharmed, but the day meant to seal Syria’s return to the diplomatic map was marked by two explosions in Damascus. Eighteen people were wounded, four of them police officers, when two improvised devices went off near the hotel where the French president had spent the night.
What happened near Macron’s hotel?
According to Syria’s interior ministry, the first device had been placed inside a car parked on the roadside and the second in a rubbish container, both close to the Four Seasons in Damascus. Macron was no longer there: he was already at the Presidential Palace for his meeting with Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa, and reportedly did not even hear the blasts. No one has claimed the attack, which the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan swiftly condemned.
Why is this visit historic?
Macron is the first Western leader to pay an official visit to Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024. Al-Sharaa welcomed him with full honours at the Presidential Palace and spoke of a “new Syria” open to anyone willing to build with it, dangling strategic and commercial opportunities. For Paris it is a calculated gamble in a Middle East being redrawn by the week — the same week Hamas dissolved its Gaza government, closing another two-decade chapter.
The explosions, though, are a reminder of how fragile the ground under the new Syria remains. The French presidency kept its schedule, and official statements are being published on the Élysée website.
A historic day, yes — but with the echo of two bombs hanging over it.
Image: Nebojša Tejić / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
