BEIRUT: State funerals will be held in Damascus on Friday for three top regime officials slain in an unprecedented bombing attack, a security source told AFP.
"State funerals will be held in Damascus tomorrow, and then each of the bodies will be transported to his native town to be buried there," the source said.
It is unclear whether President Bashar al-Assad will attend the funerals.
Assad's brother-in-law and one of the Syrian security apparatus' hawks, Assef Shawkat, will be buried in the western province of Tartous.
Defence minister Daoud Rajha will be buried in his Christian town of Maaloula near Damascus, and crisis cell chief Hassan Turkmani in northern Aleppo.
Assad's mother Anissa and his sister Bushra -- Shawkat's widow -- have already arrived in Tartous, on the Syrian coast, to receive condolences.