they're getting caught staging "terror" scenes more and more, and the press are "not a party to it"

Activists accused the government of trying to stage scenes for national TV from yesterday's explosion site in Damascus' Midan neighbourhood, after Syrian TV aired unedited footage by mistake.

The first video below, aired on Syrian TV, shows what seems to be an injured man on the floor being cradled by an armoured member of the security forces - and promptly waving at the camera standing up just before the end of the shoot.

The second video shows a reporter with a microphone in his hand placing "bags of vegetables" in the street to give the impression that some of the victims were people shopping in the nearby market.

The third video, also taken from national TV, shows a person putting police shields in one of the damaged vans giving the impression that the victims in the vehicle were from the police force: