World

Blast kills scores in Syria's rebel-held Afrin

July 11, 2019
A man walks past a damaged mini-van that was used as a make-shift ambulance amidst debris in the garage of a hospital damaged after a reported air strike in Jisr Al-Shughur in the northeastern Syrian Idlib province on Wednesday. — AFP
A man walks past a damaged mini-van that was used as a make-shift ambulance amidst debris in the garage of a hospital damaged after a reported air strike in Jisr Al-Shughur in the northeastern Syrian Idlib province on Wednesday. — AFP

BEIRUT — A car bomb killed 11 people and wounded many others on Thursday in Syria's Afrin city, which Turkey-backed rebels captured from Kurdish fighters last year, medical sources and a monitor said.

The blast struck an entrance to the city, killing civilians including children, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitoring group said.

The Observatory and the medical sources said many other people had been injured in the explosion, some very badly.

Afrin lies north of Aleppo near the border with Turkey. It was held by the Kurdish YPG militia until last year when rebels seized it and the countryside around it in a Turkey-backed offensive.

Later in the afternoon, a car bomb exploded in front of a church in the northeast city of Qamishli, which the YPG controls, a witness and state news agency SANA said.

While major fighting has died down, for now, in many parts of Syria, there is still much insecurity, with bombings and other attacks targeting civilians in areas controlled by all sides in the conflict.

In June, a car bomb in Azaz, a town near Afrin also controlled by Turkey-backed rebels, killed at least 10 people when it struck in a busy marketplace on a Ramadan night. — Reuters


July 11, 2019
40 views
HIGHLIGHTS
World
54 minutes ago

KFC Nigeria sorry after wheelchair user refused service at Lagos airport

World
56 minutes ago

India gangster-politician dies after cardiac arrest

World
58 minutes ago

Russia shuts down UN watchdog tracking North Korea sanctions