Bomb kills at least 48 in Syrian border town

Azaz is a stronghold of moderate Syrian rebels near the Turkish border but most of the blast casualties were civilians.

People gather amid the devastation of a lorry-bomb attack that killed at least 43 people and injured dozens in the rebel-held town of Azaz in northern Syria. AFPTV / AFP

Beirut // A lorry bomb killed at least 48 people and wounded dozens more on Saturday in the Syrian rebel-held town of Azaz near the Turkish border.

At least 14 rebel fighters were among the dead, but most of those killed were believed to be civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The monitoring group said the blast ripped through a market area in front of a local courthouse run by rebel groups.

The Azaz Media Centre operated by local activists put the death toll at 60.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said 53 wounded Syrians were brought across the border for treatment in the town of Kilis. Five who were in critical condition were transferred to Gaziantep.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.

Video from the scene showed huge clouds of smoke rising from a street filled with debris and twisted metal, which bulldozers worked to clear. Fires raged in vehicles nearby, and firefighters battled to put them out.

Civil defence workers, rebels and civilians picked through the rubble of a building, half of which had tumbled into the street.

The Observatory said identification of the dead was difficult because some bodies had been completely burnt in the blast.

Azaz is a hub for anti-government activists and opposition fighters, as well as many people forced out of Aleppo by the recent government offensive that recaptured the city from rebels. The town is also sandwiched between rival groups, including Syrian Kurdish fighters to the west and Turkey-backed rebel groups to the east. ISIL militants have been pushed back farther east by the Turkey-backed fighters.

ISIL has been blamed for previous attacks in Azaz, including a car bombing at a rebel headquarters in November that killed 25 people.

The extremist group is present elsewhere in Aleppo province and has sought to advance on Azaz in the past.

Osama Al Merhi, a lawyer at the scene of Saturday’s bombing, blamed ISIL.

“These kinds of crimes are only committed by the terrorist group Daesh,” he said. “They are the ones who target civilians and the cadres who are building this country.”

The blast comes during a fragile nationwide ceasefire brokered by Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, and Turkey, which backs rebel groups. It agreement does not include ISIL or Jabhat Fatah Al Sham Front, Al Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate under the name Jabhat Al Nusra.

The truce came into effect on December 30 and is intended to pave the way for peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana that Iran, another regime ally, is helping organise.

But the ceasefire and the talks have been threatened by fighting in the rebel-held Wadi Barada region outside Damascus, which is the main water source for the capital.

Overnight, seven Syrian soldiers and two civilians were killed in clashes there, though the fighting appeared to have calmed by late Saturday morning, the Observatory said.

The government says Fatah Al Sham is present in Wadi Barada, and blames rebels there for cutting water to Damascus since December 22.

Rebels deny the group is in the region and say the mains supply was severed after government strikes hit pumping facilities in the area.

The damage has left 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs without water, according to the UN.

On Saturday, state media said maintenance teams had arrived in the area 15 kilometres north-west of Damascus and were “prepared to enter” to begin repair work.

A source close to the regime said a temporary ceasefire had been agreed to allow the repair crews to enter, though it could take days before the mains supply is restored.

But there was no official confirmation of a deal or the entry of the repair crews.

More than 310,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

The fighting has displaced more than half the population, internally or abroad, and proved resistant to international efforts to broker a political solution.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press