On Sunday, at least 45 people were killed and dozens wounded in a double suicide bombing near a Shiite shrine south of Damascus, state media reported. ISIS-affiliated social media accounts circulated a statement from the group taking responsibility, the Guardian reports.

This video was shot by RTR war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny on October 18th and obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday. Filmed over the district of Jobar, it is apparently the first to show the extent of the damage to the city of Damascus, the Syrian capital, from the air.

[Palestinian residents of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus gather to await a food distribution from the United Nations Relief and Work Agency in January. Image via UNRWA Archives.]

Protesters in Syria came out in coordinated masses across the country to protest today, but the government's police apparatus was prepared to meet them—with live ammunition. Unconfirmed estimates of between 40 and 70 deaths are being reported, making it the bloodiest day in the five weeks since protests began. And it's only been one day since the Assad regime lifted the country's suffocating, decades-old emergency rule.