At least five dead and scores injured in Syria bombing

Blast went off in area near Turkish border controlled by Ankara's proxies

People gather at the site of a car bomb blast in Azaz, Syria, on June 2, 2019. Reuters

At least five people were killed and 85 wounded on Sunday in the latest car bombing reported in north-west Syria.

The bombing took place in the village of Siccu, in the Azaz region across the border from Turkey's southern province of Kilis, Turkey's state-owned Anadolu Agency said. The area is controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters.

It said 15 of the wounded had been brought to a hospital in Turkey and that some were in critical condition.

The car bombing is the latest such attack in Syrian areas controlled by Turkish-backed rebel groups.

The agency said no one claimed responsibility for the attack. Kurdish fighters, it said, have carried out such attacks in the past.

In April, a tanker bomb killed at least 46 people in Afrin, a northern city controlled by Ankara's proxies. As with most such attacks, there was no claim of responsibility from any group.

Another car bombing in the Azaz in January killed at least seven people and wounded more than 20 others.

The latest blast came as Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's government held parliamentary elections in regime-held areas.

Turkey and allied Syrian fighters took control of Afrin in 2018 in a military operation that expelled local US-backed Kurdish fighters and displaced tens of thousands of Kurdish residents.

Ankara considers the Kurdish fighters who controlled Afrin as terrorists. There have been a series of attacks on Turkish targets in the area over the past two years.