At least 17 people have been killed and dozens of others wounded in a car bomb explosion in northwest Syria, reports says.
The terrorist attack occurred on Tuesday when explosives planted on a car were detonated in the Turkish-occupied town of al-Bab in Aleppo Province, killing 17 civilians and wounding at least 50 others, Sputnik news reported.
Earlier, Turkey’s official news agency Anadolu had reported that the terror attack had claimed the lives of at least 14 civilians, including women and children. It said the blast happened in a crowded area of the town.
Images circulating on social media showed plumes of black smoke rising from the site of the explosion, which caused several fires and inflicted damage to nearby buildings.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the deadly attack in the Syrian border town.
There has been a series of attacks in the occupied town since its capture by Turkish troops and their allied militants in February 2017. Now part of Turkey’s so-called buffer zone, al-Bab is located some 30 kilometers northeast of Aleppo City, the eponymous provincial capital.
Turkey usually blames such attacks on militants of the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is viewed by Ankara as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group. Since 1984, the PKK has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey.
The remnants of Daesh, which has been defeated in Syria and Iraq, are known to carry out sporadic attacks in the two countries as well.