DAMASCUS, May 2, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - A Shia Muslim imam who served at Syria's revered Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus's southern suburbs was killed in a bomb blast on Friday, state media reported.

Imam "Farhan Hassan al-Mansour was killed in a bomb blast... in the Sayyida Zeinab area," state television reported.

"Security agencies have begun investigations at the scene" and launched a search for the perpetrators, it added.

The Shia community's highest spiritual authority in Syria said in a statement on Facebook that Mansour was killed when "his car was targeted with an explosive device".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the blast came after Mansour left the shrine and called the incident an "assassination", without saying who was responsible.

Shias are estimated to number just 300,000 in Sunni-majority Syria, and are mainly concentrated around Damascus as well as in Homs, Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Religious minorities have expressed increased safety concerns in Syria since Islamists took power in December 2024 after overthrowing longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, who was backed by Shia-majority Iran.

The Shia community quickly moved to support the new authorities and senior figures last year met Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has pledged to protect minorities in the multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic country.

But last year also saw massacres among Syria's Alawites in the community's coastal heartland, sectarian bloodshed involving the Druze minority in the country's south, and a suicide bombing at an Orthodox church in Damascus, raising fears.

In December, at least eight people were killed in a bomb blast at a mosque in an Alawite area of the central city of Homs, sparking mass protests by the Alawite community.

Last July, influential Shia cleric Sheikh Rassul Shahud was killed in central Syria, with the faith's highest body in the country decrying his "assassination".

In February last year, Syrian authorities said they had arrested an alleged Islamic State commander accused of planning a foiled attack targeting the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, Syria's most visited Shia pilgrimage site.

Pro-Iran groups used to be heavily entrenched in the Sayyida Zeinab district before Assad's ousting.