A car bomb in the Syria’s southern capital of Damascus has killed at least six people and possibly many more on Monday, according to the self-declared Islamic State militant group who claimed responsibility for the attack.

State media said the bombing was on the outskirts of Sayeda Zeinab, home to Syria’s holiest Shi’ite Muslim shrine. The bombing is the third deadly attack in the area this year in a series of attacks against the city’s Shiite community.

Lebanese group Hezbollah’s Al Manar television reported the blast had occurred at a Syrian army checkpoint.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said eight people had been killed and the toll was expected to rise because of the number of people with serious injuries.

Multiple explosions in February killed scores of people in one of the bloodiest attacks in that area in Syria’s five-year conflict, and an Islamic State suicide attack there less than a month earlier killed 70 people.

A suicide attack there less than a month earlier claimed by ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim group Islamic State group killed 70 people.

Syrian government negotiator Bashar Ja’afari said Monday’s blast “that four terrorists carried out” hit a hospital, killing some patients evacuated last week from two rebel-besieged towns in the north-western province of Idlib.

– with other agencies