A suicide bomber has launched an attack in the Syrian capital Damascus, killing at least eight people, state TV report.
Syrian police had been chasing three suspected car bombers that were trying to enter the capital, reports said.
Police stopped two of the vehicles, but the third driver entered Tahrir square in the east of the city and reportedly blew himself up after being surrounded.
Syria is in the midst of a six-year-long civil war, with Damascus still mostly under government control.
At least 12 people were injured in Sunday’s blast, reports said.
State TV said the attackers had planned to bomb crowded areas in the capital on the first working day after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“The terrorist bombings killed and wounded several civilians and caused physical damage to the area,” a police official told state news agency SANA.
A local resident told AFP he heard “gunfire at around 06:00 (03:00 GMT), then an explosion which smashed the glass of houses in the neighbourhood”.
No group has said it carried out the attack.
More than 300,000 people have lost their lives in the Syrian war, which began with anti-government protests in 2011.
The UN’s refugee agency says that since the conflict began about 5.5 million people have left the country, and another 6.3 million have been left internally displaced.
Damascus has remained mostly under the control of President Bashar al-Assad, and avoided much of the fighting.
However, the capital has experienced a number of suicide bomb attacks, including an attack on a court complex that killed at least 31 people in March.
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Source: BBC