A bomb blast killed eight people and injured 16 others on a bus in Syria's Homs on Tuesday, state media said, citing the city's health authority.
Daesh terrorist organization claimed the attack, saying the blast killed 11 members of the Syrian army.
Many of the passengers were university students, Homs Governor Talal Barazi told state-run Ikhbariya TV. The blast in the regime-held city hit the Akrama district, near al-Baath university.
Footage showed people crowding around the burned shell of a vehicle in the middle of a street. State television said "a bomb that terrorists planted in a passenger bus exploded".
Daesh terrorists had claimed responsibility for a similar attack in Homs in May, when a car bomb killed four people and injured 32 others.
A string of bombings have struck cities under regime control in Syria this year, including the capital Damascus. The Tahrir al-Sham has also claimed some of the deadly attacks.
"Security agencies are constantly chasing sleeper cells," the Homs police chief said on Ikhbariya. "Today, it could be a sleeper cell or it could be an infiltration."
Barazi, the governor, said the state's enemies were trying to target stability as "the stage of victory" drew near.
The city of Homs went back under full regime control in May, for the first time since the onset of Syria's conflict more than six years ago. Hundreds of Syrian opposition members and civilians were evacuated from the city's last opposition district, al-Waer, which the army and allied forces had besieged.
