Car Bomb Blast In Syria: A car bomb exploded in a busy market late Saturday night (March 30) in Azaz city of Aleppo province in northern Syria, killing at least seven people and injuring many. This is an area bordering Turkey.
According to the BBC report, it is not clear who carried out the attack in the city, which is run by pro-Turkish fighters fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkish forces and their proxies control large areas of Syria along the two countries’ shared border.
No one has yet taken responsibility for the explosion in Syria’s Azaz
According to the report, when the blast occurred, people in the market were buying new clothes for their children before Eid-ul-Fitr. The White Helmets, a volunteer rescue group operating in Syria, said two children and an unidentified woman were also among the dead. The explosion also caused major damage to shops, people’s houses, cars and motorcycles at the spot.
According to news agency PTI, no group has yet taken responsibility for this attack. Meanwhile, Britain-based war monitoring organization ‘Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ said that at least eight people were killed and 23 people were injured.
Syria’s Azaz city is strategically important
Since 2016, Turkey launched three major cross-border operations into Syria and took control of some areas in northern Syria. Azaz is home to the Syrian Interim Government, an opposition group that claims to be the country’s legitimate authority. Analysts have described the city as strategically important in the context of the civil war due to its proximity to the Turkish border and its importance as a supply route.
There have been blasts in crowded areas of the area before
There have been bomb blasts in the past targeting crowded civilian areas in Syria’s north-west border region, including Azaz. According to a BBC report, in 2017, more than 40 people were killed in a car bomb blast outside the city court. The attack was claimed at the time by the Islamic State group, which captured the city in 2013 and held it for some time.