At least eight people, including women and children, have lost their lives as bomb-laden car goes off in the northern Syrian city of Ra's al-Ayn, currently held by Turkish forces and allied militants.
8 killed in northern Syria car bomb attack
27 Jul 2020 - 13:18
At least eight people, including women and children, have lost their lives as bomb-laden car goes off in the northern Syrian city of Ra's al-Ayn, currently held by Turkish forces and allied militants.
Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that the attack was carried out near a marketplace on Sunday. Some of the injured are in a critical condition.
The Turkish Defense Ministry blamed the YPG in a post on its official Twitter page.
The new bombing attack came after on June 5, two children were killed in a similar attack at the same place.
On October 9, 2019, Turkish forces and Ankara-backed militants launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion of northeastern Syria in a declared attempt to push the YPG away from border areas.
Ankara views the YPG, which is supported by the White House, as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.
Two week after the invasion began, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a memorandum of understanding that asserted the YPG had to withdraw from the Turkish-controlled "safe zone" in northeastern Syria within 150 hours, after which Ankara and Moscow would run joint patrols around the area. The patrols have come under attacks by militants ever since.
That announcement was made hours before a US-brokered five-day truce between Turkish and Kurdish-led forces was due to expire.
Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that US forces and allied Kurdish-led militants from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had arrested a number of local residents and internally displaced persons near a US base in the Jazira region of Hasakah.
Elsewhere in the northwestern province of Aleppo, Turkish-backed militants looted privately-owned property.
SANA reported that members of the Hamza Division terrorist group broke into several houses on Saturday, stealing money, furniture and home appliances.
Story Code: 470618