More than 30 people, civilians and combatants, were killed Tuesday in a tank truck bombing in Afrine, a town in northern Syria held by Turkish forces and their Syrian deputies, an NGO said.
The explosion of a fuel-carrying truck on a market, on which a bomb was placed, killed "at least 36 people, including civilians, and injured 40 others," the report said. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). At least six Syrian fighters allied in Ankara are among the dead, the NGO said.
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The attack, which was not immediately claimed, is the deadliest for months in the northern territories of Syria held by the Syrian deputies of Ankara. These areas are regularly shaken by similar attacks or targeted assassinations. The toll of the attack on Tuesday could be revised upwards because there are many "critical cases" among the injured, said the director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel Rahmane.
Providing a higher toll of the victims, the Turkish Defense Ministry attributed responsibility for the attack on Twitter to the Kurdish militia of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and their allies.
Located in the province of Aleppo, the Kurdish region of Afrin had been conquered in March 2018 by Turkish forces and their Syrian auxiliaries, who had dislodged the YPG from them. Half of the 320,000 residents of the Afrin enclave fled their homes during the offensive, according to the UN, and the majority never returned.
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Today, the region hosts thousands of civilians who were settled there after being forced to abandon former rebel strongholds recaptured by the Damascus regime. According to the UN and the NGO Amnesty International, expropriations and other abuses are committed in the enclave, in particular by the Syrian deputies.
In January, at least seven people were killed in the explosion of a car bomb in Azaz, a city in the province of Aleppo held by Syrian Protestant forces, according to the OSDH. The war in Syria started in 2011 has become more complex over the years, involving foreign powers. The conflict has already killed more than 380,000 people.
