Mangled cars and slabs of concrete litter the streets after two suicide and car bombs rip through a suburb of Damascus.
State media says at least eight people were killed but a UK-based monitoring group says the death toll has topped 20 and is expected to rise further, since scores of others were wounded -- some in critical condition.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the blasts that struck near Syria's holiest shrine for Shi'ite Muslims.
The ultra-hardline Sunni militants are avowed enemies of Shi'ites.
The shrine is a magnet for thousands of Iraqi and Afghan Shi'ite militia recruits who go there before heading out for the front lines of Syria's civil war.
The Shi'ite recruits are fighting the Sunni rebel groups trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The blasts come as Islamic State's many foes are advancing against it on a number of fronts in both Syria and neighboring Iraq.