At least 30 people have been killed and scores injured by suicide bombers in the Sayeda Zeinab district of the Syrian capital Damascus, the Syrian interior ministry says.
State television footage showed burning buildings and car wreckage in the neighbourhood where a large Shi'ite shrine is located.
Syrian news agency SANA reported the explosions heavily damaged a military intelligence building. The blasts happened at 7.50am local time (2250 Sunday AEDT).
The interior ministry said later that two suicide bombers blew them themselves up near where Syria's holiest Shi'ite shrine is located.
The heavily populated Sayeda Zeinab district in the city's south is a site of pilgrimage for Shi'ites from Iran, Lebanon and other parts of the Muslim world.
Sunday's explosions occurred as representatives of Syria's government and its divided opposition began convening in Geneva for the first UN-mediated peace talks in two years.
The United Nations has said the aim would be six months of talks, first seeking a ceasefire and later working toward a political settlement to a war that has killed more than 250,000 people, driven more than 10 million from their homes and drawn in global powers.
